Chapters 11-12

Today, Issy remembers the first time she met Sarah, whilst Peter continues to meet Miss Mary Hain alone.

If you prefer to listen, the audio is here too.

Chapter Eleven Early-Winter 2015 Isabella

It’s Thursday and I’m in Mrs Bridges’ office. I’ve had a pretty good week so far. I finished watching everything that Mr Harrison recommended, and I’ve started writing my essay, although it has been difficult to write so far. I liked that Mrs Marlow wanted to talk to me about it, but her ideas keep trying to sneak into what I’m writing, seeping into my paragraphs when I’m not concentrating. I keep writing though – you only ever know what you think if you keep on thinking and keep on writing. I don’t ignore what she said. I keep thinking about it every time the idea floats onto the page; but it’s only one idea, and there are others to work through too.

Mrs Bridge’s was making tea just as I arrived. Well, I can smell that she has coffee, but it looks like she is making me a cup of tea. She hands the mug to me, holding the handle. I take it round the sides with open palms, like I’m sipping from a bowl of soup in an Indian’s tent around a burning fire – Native American Indian, I mean, like in Peter Pan, with feather crowns, and wise words. It’s comforting just to hold the steaming hot mug. I sit down and sip, feeling the hot liquid all the way down, picturing its journey in my head; as it touches each cold body part, it is like switching on a sequence of lights. First my lips flick on, then my mouth, the back of my throat, and down, down until it reaches and warms my belly, which becomes a cavern of warm, glowing orange light. I breathe in the steam, rising from the surface and close my eyes. When I open them again, Mrs Bridges is sitting opposite me, ready to begin. I appreciate that she does not rush me, but waits, like Mrs Marlow, until it feels right to start talking.

‘How are you, Issy?’

‘I’m okay,’ I say, closing my eyes again as I breathe in the steam from my mug.

‘Last week you had been thinking about Sarah a lot, and you started to tell me about something very distressing.’ She pauses, wondering, I think, if her statement will prompt a response from me that will help her to know where to go next. I don’t say anything for a moment, and then something pops into my mind.

‘I haven’t been thinking about things as much this week. I’ve been very busy. But I did have a dream about Sarah last night that wasn’t a nightmare. It was about something nice, but that sort of made it sad too in the end.’

‘And what did you dream about? Would you like to tell me?’ I know I have to talk to Mrs Bridges, and I know that she is really nice and will understand more than I tell her, so I don’t mind talking to her about personal things.

‘I dreamed about the first time that I met Sarah.’ And as I start to tell Mrs Bridges the story, I am back there, five years old again, playing in the park, without a care in the world.

It is the summer holidays and I’m playing at the big town park. There is a great big hill in the centre of the park, in a wide-open clearing, encircled at its perimeters by tall, dense woodland. In the heat of the midday sun, my mother and father have fallen asleep on our red and white chequered picnic blanket, the wicker basket of food still open, being inspected by a few daring wasps now that its defenders are not looking. I’m feeling very hot, but full of energy, so I decide to go off and explore the edge of the wood closest to us. I run as fast as I can. I’m imagining that I’m being chased by evil pixies and that if I can only reach the edge of the tree line I will be safe. I reach the border of the wood and turn around to see the evil pixies stop in mid-flight, snarl at me and then turn around in defeat. I give a triumphant look in their direction and turn to walk along the tree line, aware that I ought to keep my parents in sight, especially if they have fallen asleep.

Ahead of me is a large pond, that glimmers and glistens under the midday sun. The surface ripples and I imagine that it is covered in thousands of crushed diamonds, reflecting the light of the sun’s powerful rays in all directions. Beyond the pond and out into the clearing, the big hill rises up towards the sky. To the left, and between the tree line and the water’s edge, stands a grand and overhanging weeping willow. It is in full bloom and so, hanging down as it does, I can see nothing inside the dome-like igloo it forms.

I approach with caution, wondering if it is some trap set by the pixie king, like a spider’s web luring its prey. But as I creep quietly closer to the tree, I realise that I have momentarily broken from the protection of the tree line; the sun suddenly beats down on my face, and, out of the tree’s protective shade, I hear my pursuers flying towards me again. I break into a sudden run, closing the last twenty metres between me and the willow tree and all but dive through the hanging limbs, tumbling into the domed hideaway of the drooping branches.

When I gather my senses, and shake my head into clarity, I see that someone is already inside my new shelter. It is another girl, about my age. She looks up at me from whatever it is she is doing – it looks like she’s arranging sticks into some sort of pattern on the ground in front of her.

‘Wow, you came in quickly. Were you being chased?’ She says it earnestly and matter of factly at the same time, which makes me ready to instantly believe anything she says.

‘Yes, by the evil pixies.’

‘Oh, I see. Well, you’re lucky you tumbled into this tree. I’ve just finished arranging these sticks into the protective sign of the fairy people of the wood. It means that this shelter is now marked, and anyone inside it is under the protection of the Fairy King. He’s fierce and frightening, but if you mean his people no harm, then he’s good to have on your side. And he’s at war with the evil pixies, so an enemy of the pixies is a friend of his… and mine.’ She smiles and holds out her hand. ‘Hi, I’m Sarah.’ I reach out to shake her hand, thinking that I might have just met the most amazing person in the entire world, and as I touch her little, friendly, five-year-old’s hand, I suddenly get a flashing vision of another tree, in the dark, and the cold, and the rain. Sarah’s smile disappears and the quiet is replaced by the chaos of the storm raging, for a fraction of a second, before my mind’s eye.

I open my eyes and I’m back in Mrs Bridges’ office. She looks at me, as though waiting for me to say something, and I realise that I must have stopped mid-sentence. I continue where I left off, as silent tears begin to trickle down my cheeks.

‘I took her hand and she shook it, but not in the normal way that people shake hands. She showed me the secret handshake of the fairy kingdom. We smiled at each other and she asked me to tell her about the evil pixies that had been chasing me, and even though I was only five, I knew that I had just met the most amazing friend I would ever have.’

The tears continue slowly, as I stare beyond Mrs Bridges, really looking at Sarah’s beaming five-year-old’s face, her hand still outstretched for me to take. But I can’t take it anymore; she is too far away.

I sit and type like girls used to make phone calls and talk.

I keep thinking about what #me said last week, the day I bumped into Bobby Peters. I must admit, I’m scared out of my mind and pretty much anxious all over when I think about it, but I also can’t stop smiling from cheek to cheek. He said that he wants to meet up at half term break. I know we meet up every day inside, but he says he wants me to go up the Shrewsbury for the day, to meet me in the flesh too.

Part of me sort of thinks it doesn’t matter if we meet up or not, but part of me also thinks we have to. It’s like what I said to Mrs Marlowe about the film Her, if no-one has a body then it doesn’t matter; #me and IBHighLife don’t have bodies, so it doesn’t matter, but I guess that we both have bodies too, and they want to meet as well; I know I sometimes don’t recognise myself in the mirror, but I am still Isabella really, and #me is some other name too, and those names still want to have some control over what we do.

I think of the painting in #me’s room and in Mrs Bridges’ office and I imagine that meeting him will be just like that – like a physical manifestation of the way we feel when we talk inside: calm, peaceful, but also golden and magical.

- I can’t wait!

- Me too!

- There is a café called Café Einaudi where I think we should meet. I’ll be there early, waiting on the terrace.

- Like in the painting!

- Like when we first really met.

- Or at least how you imagined it.

- Like how I felt it.

- Me too.

There’s a film called Chocolate – well, actually there was a book before there was a film, but I’ve not read it; it’s not that I don’t want to read it, I just haven’t got around to it yet – there really is a lot to read out there. I watched the start of the film again last night because something got me thinking about it; the weather outside my window reminded me of the opening scene, and I remembered how much I loved watching that film with Mum, before Sarah died. We watched it a couple of times afterwards too; it was quite comforting, but then it just didn’t feel right anymore.

So, in the opening scene you see a mother and a daughter wrapped up like red riding hood in duffle coats, hoods up, covering their faces from the grey sky and blustering wind. As they’re travelling, the mother narrates about how she has never stayed in one place for long. She has travelling blood in her and whenever the north wind calls, she follows it wherever it takes her.

I used to really like the way that the mother and daughter were huddled up against the wind. I also liked the idea that the mother always moved them on when the north wind blew. It has a fairy tale sort of magic to it. But when we watched the film after Sarah died, I realised that there was no north wind: it was just an excuse for the mother’s fear of staying around somewhere long enough to fail: if you keep moving on, you never get to the place where things get hard.

Watching the opening scene last night, I don’t know how I feel about it anymore. I had thought that I didn’t like the way the mother kept moving on, because things that last are the best things there are, and things that end are the most painful. But now I don’t know what I think. I sort of understand why the mother wants to keep moving on. I mean, I’ll never find another Sarah, I know that. That’s when I stopped watching the film last night, when I realised that the mother must have lost a Sarah too.

I’ve been reading the book that Mrs Bridges lent me, and there are some amazing pieces of art in there. There’s lots of information about the artists too, which is really interesting. The best thing I think I’ve come across so far is to find out that William Blake, the poet we’ve been studying in English, was an artist too. He used a method called relief etching, which I don’t completely understand – I think I’ll try to find a video about it on YouTube later – but the result was that he produced some pretty vivid illustrations to his poems.

The picture that stands out to me most is ‘The Ancient of Days’. It’s of an old man, with a long, wispy beard. He’s crouched down and hunched over in front of – or it sort of looks as though he’s inside – the sun or a star; either way, it’s burning brightly in oranges and yellows and reds. He’s pointing one of his hands down, and it looks like two swords of yellow light are being harnessed from the sun around him, and he’s sending them down below. The picture is obviously of God, hence the title. I like the way he seems to be above the world, looking down on it from heaven, where he can see everything going on in the world below, and, harnessing the power of the sun, he sends down his protection to the people. The swords of light sort of look like lightening, but something about the way he is facing down makes you know that he’s not violent. I’m looking at the picture again now, and I’m reminded of Plato’s philosopher kings again. I don’t believe in an omniscient protector like Blake’s Ancient of Days. How could I? But I like the sentiment of the painting. I like the idea of the all-seeing, all-knowing protector, looking out for the people below. There’s nothing comforting about not being able to see danger around the corner, but there is something comforting about knowing that someone else can, and that they’re willing to shield you from it, or else strike it down before it can do you any harm.

- Do you believe in God?

- No. But I sort of like the idea.

- Yeah, sort of. I know what you mean.

- But I haven’t explained anything yet!

- Yeah, but I know what you mean.

Chapter Twelve Winter 2035 Peter Harrison

It has now been three months since I began my work here at NewStateHeadQuarters. I have spent very few hours inside, but I have produced a considerable amount of content for those who do. I attend the nineteen-hundred hours screenings three times a week and I am told that the work that my team and I complete is very satisfactory. Viewing figures on the media moments we produce has seen the sub-sixty second content figures steadily increase and, as Miss Mary Hain puts it, this means that satisfaction in the public consciousness increases too. If figures diminish or stagnate we tweak our approach, but, by and large, it seems that we have found a formula that works, that keeps people coming back and that keeps them satisfied.

I spend three afternoons a week in the rec room, sometimes with others, playing snooker, or table tennis, or board games, and sometimes – perhaps once a fortnight – sitting by myself in the late afternoon when the room is all but empty, reading whatever book I have that week. My meetings with Miss Mary Hain have continued to yield new books for me to read, or, sometimes, old books for me to re-read. We have continued to meet almost every week, on Thursdays at seven, for real food, the occasional real drink, and to discuss real literature. At the end of each dinner I wonder if she will present me with another book, but she prefers, it seems, to leave them at my door. Sometimes they appear later that same night, and sometimes not for another three days. Whenever they arrive I find myself relax and there has not been a book I have not read at least twice before we meet, such is the fervour of my re-education and my determination not to let the nineteen-hundred hour screenings remind me of what I do in the daytime.

I occasionally taste the bile rise to my throat at the evening screenings, but I remember the words that Janine spoke to me at the library on our last run, and I am able to contain my self-hatred: I must do what I have to, and do it in good conscience, knowing that it is all for the greater good.

And so, life has resumed in a semblance of the old life I knew before the change. I await each new book with anticipation and I accept that my work is just what I have to do to make the rest possible.

Each time we meet, Miss Mary Hain’s cold, authoritative, robotic control fades a little more. I imagine that I see it drifting away. When she talks about something she loves or, perhaps more commonly, something that frustrates her in the books we discuss, it is as if a visible vapour is floating away, and I am left with the simple truth of her convictions painted on her face with the warmth of a smile or the frustration of a frown. I come to anticipate our meetings as much as I do the arrival of each new book, and I grow uneasy as each meeting moves closer towards its end.

Tonight, we meet as usual, and I arrive clutching my copy of The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, this week’s more morbid reading.

I walk towards our table and she is, as ever, already there, waiting for me. The table is laid plainly, but the lighting is turned off around most of the cavernous room, so that although we sit to the side of such a vast and empty space, the light over our table is separated from the dimness around us. The effect is intimate and cosy. The flickering flame of the candle set in the middle of the table completes the picture.

She rises slightly as I step under the spotlight, like a gentleman of old, rising for his lady. I smile, for I am the lady and she the gentleman.

‘Good evening, Peter. How are you?’ She leans in familiarly and we exchange a kiss on the cheek.

‘Oh, fine, fine. It’s good to see you, Mary. Have you been busy? I’ve not seen you this week at the nineteen-hundred hour screenings.’

‘Oh, I have seen the content though, and I must say it is better than ever. You really are running that team well, Peter. I know Our Leader Day is very pleased with the reports I have given her. But yes, it has been busy with one thing and another.’ She sighs, and in the moment of silence that follows she creases at the brow, looking through the flame of the candle at some nothingness beyond. At the mention of Our Leader Day, something jolts within me and I feel compelled to ask a question.

‘I wonder that I haven’t seen Our Leader Day since I arrived. It sounds like she is keeping you busy?’

‘Busy?’ she seems to move back into the conversation. ‘Yes, it is always very busy. Keeping the world running, that is what she calls it. Keeping the people happy. Keeping the people safe. It is big work that we do, and I suppose I shouldn’t be ashamed to say that it is tiring sometimes, yes.’

I reach out to take her hand without thinking. Realising what I am doing, I snatch it away quickly, wondering foolishly if I managed to pass it off. The impulse confuses me. And then she reaches out and takes my hand as I had so nearly done hers.

‘It is comforting, Peter, to talk with you. I look forward to these moments every week and am sorry for the occasions when we cannot meet. It is…’ she pauses, ‘good to talk. The business of this building really does melt away at this table.’ She smiles, and we sit in silence for a moment. I am reminded of the lingering looks that so confused me during the interview process. But then, I suppose, I am no less confused now. These months have felt a great deal longer than they have in fact been and these meetings have become part of a routine that has renewed my flailing sense of self. I feel rooted now, in a way that I have not felt rooted for years. I have a job. I have hobbies. I have… friends. Miss Mary Hain pulls me from my reverie, simultaneously pulling herself back from her own, her tone decidedly more exuberant.

‘Well, Peter. How about The Bell Jar. Did you like it?’

And so, we talk and eat and drink, and the world inside this building, and the world beyond it, drifts away, and there are only the two of us, discussing this book, at this table, at the centre of everything.

Still discussing the book after an hour, Miss Mary Hain unnerves me.

‘Peter, I wonder if you realise what you have been arguing.’ I look at her confusedly. ‘You remind me of Our Leader Day. It was her who lent the book to me many years ago.’

‘So, what is it that we agree upon?’ I am very interested to know. These past months have made me question my entire understanding of the NewState machine, and I long to know in what particulars I could possibly agree with the figure I spent so many years feeling – what did I feel? Pity, at first, certainly pity, but eventually anger, and most latterly a growing hatred. But now? What do I feel now? I ask myself this question every day as I lie on my bed waiting for sleep to take its hold, and I cannot answer it. Perhaps it is less a question of what I feel, for though these feelings confuse me, I know what I feel. No, it is more a question of what I think. In light of the feelings that I feel inside this building and inside this new life – feelings that have surprised me – what do I think?

‘The bell jar itself.’ She explains. ‘It is a metaphor for the very reason that NewState is so integral to the survival of the human race. The bell jar was the world we were growing into before technology saved us. Mental health, anxiety, fear, loneliness, self-loathing, world-loathing, race-loathing, all these things were growing at an exponential rate. People were losing touch with themselves as the world globalised. The new market was just too big. Nations had lost their borders, and the devastating consequence of becoming closer as a whole was that we lost our individual sense of wholeness. We became part of one giant body only to lose touch with whatever part of that body we were when we joined it. Esther Greenwood, you said it yourself, was lost in the sea of the city, and she couldn’t find herself. The only course left to her was self-destruction. Peter, you have argued that Esther was not to blame for her illness. You blame society. Do you see now that SSC has saved us from living inside the bell jar? It has saved us from rattling around in the enormity of the globe and has given us true connection again – true connection in the safest of worlds: our screens shelter the people and set them free.’ It is hard to feel a semblance of sense that tries to knock down a vast wall that I spent so many years building.

Lack of conviction is a weakness that can get a man killed.

Killed. Something stirs within me and I have to press the point. I have to understand. I have to check.

‘But what about us then? If SSC has saved humanity, then don’t we pose a threat to its continuation? Aren’t we too many exceptions to simply be the exceptions that prove the rule? I mean, I’m not the only one out there like us. I…’ I stop myself. Stop dead. I was about to reveal the existence of my fellow runners. I remove the panic on my face and try to recover as seamlessly as possible. ‘I mean, I can’t be the only one, can I?’ She had been looking at me without cessation. She must have noticed.

‘Peter.’ Her voice is still soft and some of the tension that rose so quickly to my brow subsides. She takes my hand again, continuing as if she did not notice my hesitation. ‘Peter, SSC cannot run without the vast infrastructure around us. You are forgetting that we cannot be a danger to the system because the system gives us what we want too. Our world is divided into two happy halves. The bell jar was created by the folly of these two halves mixing themselves together. There is no ‘us’ and ‘them’ anymore. There are no competing ideologies. There is only a harmony in a way that there could never have been when we all lived together. We are safe from the corruption of ignorance, and they are safe from the corrosion of arrogance.’

Her argument is appealing, but still it unnerves me.

‘But isn’t that just segregation? A kind of intellectual racism?’

‘No, Peter. It can’t be: we are all happy. We are giving the people what they want and they, in turn, give us what we need. It is reciprocal, harmonious. It is utopian.’

I find I have nothing to say, and that I am unable to even think. Everything I have believed for the last decade is in crisis. I fear my own arrogance, my own stubbornness. Is what Miss Mary Hain says true? Is this status quo the solution to the problems that society faced before the change? Or am I allowing myself to entertain her ideas because I have become hedonistically accustomed to this new life that gives me so much more of what I believed to have been lost for good? Is my mind now blank because my ability to reason and to argue and to rationalise has been sedentary for so long, or is my mind blank because there is no rebuttal to the argument she presents?

‘Peter,’ she says, drawing me back. ‘Shall we walk? I would like to walk with you.’

I stand up in response to her question, still in a daze, unable to shake this mist that has engulfed my mind. I picture it: an impenetrable fog filling my head, obstructing the motion of all neurological connections within my brain, clogging up the pathways, jamming the signals. I look at her face as we stand, and she smiles, and something breaks through the fog, something red, something sweet. I smile back, involuntarily, conscious only as I am doing it that the decision was made to do so. The feeling feels like a restorative. My mind is still thick, but my body relaxes, un-knots, un-furrows. I take Miss Mary Hain’s outstretched hand, again without thinking. It feels electric to touch – electric and warm – soft and reassuring. We walk out of the canteen. She leads the way through corridors and up stairways and down halls. I am aware that much of our route is unfamiliar to me, and that we are moving deeper into the heart of the building.

‘It is nice to walk, don’t you think. It reminds me of my childhood. Do you remember, Peter, that I told you about my childhood?’ I remember our whispered conversation at NSSolarFarmOne. She continues, almost whispering her voice is so soft. ‘We are so similar, Peter. I feel we are cut from the same cloth. Both inquisitive, both so thoughtful, and both so willing to work. There is no rule against enjoying someone else’s company, Peter. There is no rule against sharing what we want to share.’ She stops speaking and we stop walking.

My mind has left our debate behind, and though I have never been here before, I feel I know where we are. Miss Mary Hain takes out her identity card and swipes. There follows a faint click and she pushes the door open before us. The sight inside is similar to my own room, except that this one is larger and, though still nondescript with its white walls and softly illumined floor, small variations make it homelier, softer, and more familiar.

Still holding her hand, I follow Miss Mary Hain into the room. She leads me and then turns to look at me. We stare at one another and the warmth of the room and the warmth of her touch course through me. She smiles with an insatiable combination of shyness and excitement. Our eyes are fixed upon the others’ and the distance between us shrinks. We step closer and I feel her body press against mine. And then the little distance left disappears entirely, and we kiss. Images flash through my mind: images of a night spent in a small spinney half way down a valley. But what was once an uncontrollable dream, is now an inescapable reality. We are entwined, and all remaining thought dissipates as the senses are awakened to the glory of the night.

I am walking down a long corridor that seems to end ahead of me. It is featureless except that every so often a door breaks off to the left or the right. I am aware that I am walking quickly and with purpose. I place each step with a destination in mind, and though there appears to be a dead end ahead, I continue undaunted. Occasionally I look over my shoulder as if some unknown presence is following me. Each time I see nobody, turn back and continue walking just a little faster. As I approach what my eyes had translated to be a solid wall, I see now that the corridor in fact bends to the right.

I turn the corner and hear the sound of voices behind me. Suddenly the light fails, and I am plunged into darkness. But no sooner am I blinded, than sight is restored. The lights continue to flicker intermittently, and I am urged on ever faster. Soon the long corridor appears to offer an end in sight. I speed up until I am positively running towards what I can now see is a door in front of me. The noises behind increase. My legs move faster. My arms beat harder. I feel the sweat begin to drip from my temple to my chin. My breathing intensifies. I try to catch my breath with an extended gulp. The air goes in and I am rewarded with an extra dose of oxygen. I run at the door as if to slam into it. I hit the metal lever with the full weight of my body.

The door gives way and I tumble out, falling to the ground and rolling over, my eyes closed in the tumult. When I stop rolling, I am on all fours. I raise my head and slowly open my eyes. As I do so an overwhelming wave of despair washes over me and a feeling of complete hopelessness fills me up from head to toe. My mind thinks nothing. All thought ceases as the horror hits me, for as far as the eye can see the world is a bonfire of burning devastation. It burns in the brightest of flames, amplified by the darkness of the night against which it roars. The world is on fire and nothing can dampen the blaze. The salty sweat that still drips down my face, mingles with the tears that now pour from my eyes. I cry out in horror and despair until my voice is hoarse and my throat burns; but cry as I might with all that I am, my screams are nothing against the sound of this hell-fire of damnation.

I awake, and my body shoots up. I am breathing hard and am soaked in sweat, as if the dream had been real. It takes me a moment for the unbearable assault of despair and hopelessness to recede, as the vivid images of the dream creep back into their unreality, buried somewhere in my subconscious. I continue to stare and pant and sweat as my eyes adjust to the light of my surroundings. It is dark and I am aware that I am not where I expect to be. I turn to face my left and see the resting body of Miss Mary Hain lying peacefully next to me. My mind comes back into focus and I understand where I am. I have been dreaming. It was an inexplicable nightmare. But I am prone to nightmares. I always have been. And my sleeping mind has been well trained over the years to work vividly in order to escape the mundanity of the virtual reality inside the great horseshoe curve that until recently ruled my life.

But the sight of Miss Mary Hain sleeping soundly calms me. I take one big deep breath, hold it in my lungs, and let it out. The effect is cathartic. I am safe. I remember the moments before I fell to sleep, and I smile. As the images of the dream move farther and farther from my mind’s eye, I slowly lie back down, turn onto my side facing Miss Mary Hain and, drawing the sheet over me, close my eyes and fall almost immediately back into a now dreamless slumber.