“Now why would I do that?” says Aurora.
“Someone did,” says Charmaine. “Because I’m wearing different clothes.” The thought of Aurora changing her clothes like a Barbie doll’s while she was out cold gives her a shuddery feeling all over.
“I expect you did it yourself, and just don’t remember it. You must have had an episode of temporary amnesia,” says Aurora in that know-it-all voice of hers. “A shock like the one you’ve had can bring on a fugue state. You were on the sofa when I got here ten minutes ago.” She sets the tea tray down on the coffee table. “The brain is very protective, it decides what we choose to remember.”
Charmaine feels anger flooding her, pushing out the grief. If she’d been down in the cellar getting stuff out of her locker she’d remember it, in addition to which she never would’ve picked this blouse. What kind of a fashion loser do they think she is? Who brought her back here from Medications Administration, anyway?
She pulls herself upright, swings her legs down onto the floor. She absolutely, totally does not want Aurora to see her in this state, the state of a mud puddle. She wipes her nose and eyes on her sleeve since a tissue is lacking, brushes the damp hair back off her forehead, pulls her face into a semblance of order. “Thank you,” she says as crisply as she can. “Actually, I’m fine.”
Does Aurora know about what Charmaine has done to Stan? Maybe she can bluff, conceal her weakness. Say she fainted because she had her period or low blood-sugar or something.
“Well, that’s very strong of you,” says Aurora. “I mean, not many people would have such a firm sense of duty and loyalty.” She sits down on the sofa beside Charmaine. “I have to admire you, I really do.” She pours the tea into the cup – Charmaine’s cup, with the pink rosebuds that Stan never liked. But he never liked tea anyway, he was a coffee kind of guy, with cream and two sugars. She represses a sob.
“I really should apologize, on behalf of management,” says Aurora, setting the cup down on the coffee table in front of Charmaine. “It was so tactless of Logistics.” She’s put a cup for herself on the tray; she busies herself with filling it. Charmaine takes a gulp of tea. It does help.
“What do you mean?” she says, though she knows perfectly well what Aurora means. Aurora’s enjoying this. She’s relishing it.
“They should have booked you for someone else’s Procedure,” says Aurora. “They shouldn’t have put you through such an ordeal.” She measures the sugar into her own cup, stirs it.
“What ordeal?” says Charmaine. “I was just doing my job.” But it’s no use: she can see that in the tidy non-smile on Aurora’s over-lifted mask of a face.
“He was your husband, wasn’t he?” says Aurora. “Your most recent Procedure. According to the records. Whatever the state of your private life together, and that is none of our business and I don’t want to pry, but whatever that state, carrying out the Procedure must have been … truly a difficult decision for you to make.” She cranks up her smile, a smile of smarmy understanding. Charmaine feels like whacking her across the face. What do you know about it, you shrivelled-up prissy-pants? she would like to yell.
“I just do my job,” she says defensively. “I follow the prescribed routine. In all cases.”
“I appreciate your desire to – shall we say – blur the outlines,” says Aurora. “But we happen to have taped the entire process, as we do at random, for quality control. It was very … it was touching. Watching you struggle with your emotions. I was moved, I really was, we all were! We could see you faltering, it was only natural, I mean, who wouldn’t? You’d have to be inhuman. But you did overcome them, those emotions! Don’t think we haven’t noted that. The overcoming. Of the emotions. In fact, our chief himself, Ed, would like to thank you in person, and a little bird told me, it’s not official, but I think there might be a promotion in the offing, because if anyone deserves it for the heroic –”
“I think you should leave now,” says Charmaine, setting down her cup. In one more minute she is going to throw that cup and everything in it. Smack-dab in the middle of Aurora’s prefab face.
“Of course,” says Aurora, with a half-smile like a perfectly symmetrical slice of lemon. “I do feel your pain. It must be so, well, so painful. The pain that you feel. We’ve booked a trauma counsellor for you, because of course you will be experiencing survivor’s guilt. Well, more than just
Go on, says her little inner voice. Bash this teapot over her head. Cut her throat with the bread knife. Then drag her downstairs and hide the body in your pink locker.
But Charmaine refrains. There would be telltale bloodstains on the rug. Plus, if they’d videoed her with Stan and the needle, they might have a way of doing that inside this house as well.
“You’ll feel differently tomorrow,” says Aurora, standing too, still smiling her flat, stretched smile. “We all adjust, in time. The funeral is on Thursday, that’s in two days. Electrical accident at the chicken facility is the explanation we’re giving; it will be on the news tonight. Everyone at the funeral will want to offer condolences, so you should be prepared. I’ll arrange a car for six-thirty, to pick you up for your concussion X-ray; it’s after hours, but they’ll be waiting for you specially. In your state, you shouldn’t be driving your scooter.”
“I hate you!” Charmaine yells. “Evil witch!” But she waits until after the door has closed.
Coffeetime
“Stan,” says a voice. “Time to move.” Stan opens his eyes: it’s Jocelyn. She’s shaking his arm. He stares at her groggily.
“About fucking time,” he says. “And thanks for leaving me in cold storage. Do you mind unshackling me? I need to take a leak.” He has an image of how the next few minutes would go if this were a spy film. He’d deck Jocelyn, knock her out, find her keys, snap her onto the bin, steal her phone so she couldn’t call for help when she woke up – she must have a phone – and then go out and save the world all by himself.
“Don’t do anything spontaneous,” says Jocelyn. “I’m the only thing standing between you and rigor mortis. So pay very close attention, because I can only go over this once. I’m due at a top-level meeting, so we have almost no time.” She’s wearing her business get-up – the trim suit, the little hoop earrings, the grey stockings. Strange to think of her prone underneath him or naked on top of him, where she has often been – legs splayed, mouth open, hair wild, as if blown by a squall. That seems like a different planet.
She unlocks his tether, helps him to climb down out of the teddy bear bin. He’s still wobbly. He staggers in behind the bin, takes a piss – he can’t see any other place to do it – then staggers back out again.
She has a small thermos of coffee with her, thank fuck for that. He guzzles greedily, washing down the two painkiller pills that she hands him. “For the headache,” she says. “Sorry about it, but that drug’s the only one we could use. Mimics the effects of the real thing but without the finale.”
“How close did I get?” says Stan.
“Nothing worse than a strong anesthetic,” she says. “Think of it as a holiday for your brain.”
“So,” says Stan. “I was wrong about Charmaine. She went for the bull’s-eye.”
“She couldn’t have been better,” says Jocelyn with an irritating smile. “Acting wouldn’t come close.”
You callous asshole, he thinks. “You know you’re a triple-grade shit,” he says. “Putting her through that. You’ve fucked up her head for life.”
“She’s a little shaken, yes,” says Jocelyn evenly. “For the present. But we’ll take care of her.” Stan doesn’t find this too reassuring:
“Understatement,” says Stan. Now that he thinks about it, he’s ravenous. Out of her handbag she produces a cheese sandwich that he scoffs down in one bite. He could use a couple more of those, plus some chocolate cake and a beer. “Where exactly the fuck am I?” he says, once he’s swallowed it all down.
“In a warehouse,” says Jocelyn.
“Yeah, I got that. But am I still inside Positron Prison?”
“Yes,” says Jocelyn. “It’s part of the facility.”
“So, are those coffins?” He nods toward the oblong boxes.
Jocelyn laughs. “No. They’re shipping crates.”
Stan decides not to ask what they might be shipping. “Okay, so,” he says, “where do I go? Unless you plan to keep me in here with these fucking bears.”
“I can understand your irritation,” says Jocelyn. “Bear with me, pardon the pun.” She gives him a big-toothed grin. “There are two things you have to remember, for your own safety during your time here. First, your name is now Waldo.”
“Waldo?” he says. “Can’t I be … Shit!” In no way does he see himself as a Waldo. Wasn’t that some kind of cartoon rabbit on kids’ TV? Or a fish? No, that was Nemo. A cartoon thing, anyway. Where’s Waldo?
“It’s a data bank move,” says Jocelyn. “You’re replacing a previous Waldo. He had an accident. Don’t look at me like that, it was a real accident, involving a soldering iron. You’re inheriting his code, his identity. I’ve gone into the system and spliced in your biometrics.”
“Okay,” he says. “So I’m fucking Waldo. What’s the second thing?”
“You’ll be on a Possibilibots team,” says Jocelyn. “Just watch the others and follow orders.”
“Possibilibots?” says Stan. Is this something he’s supposed to know? He can’t place the term; he’s feeling dizzy again. “Any more coffee?”
“Possibilibots makes a Dutch-designed line of exact-replica female sex aids,” says Jocelyn. “For home and export. I’m sure you’ll find the work interesting.”
“You mean those prostibots? The sex robots? The guys at the scooter depot were talking about them.”
“That’s the unofficial name for them, yes. Once they’re put together and tested for performance, they’re packed into these boxes” – she indicates the stacks of coffin-shaped containers – “and shipped outside Consilience, for deployment in amusement centres and other franchise areas. The Belgians are nuts about them, certain models. And some of the other models are very big in Southeast Asia.”
He thinks for a moment. “And who will they think this Waldo is? The one I’m supposed to be? Won’t they wonder where the other Waldo has gone?”
“They never knew that Waldo. They don’t even know there was a Waldo. He was deployed elsewhere. But if they check the data bank, you’ll be Waldo in there. Don’t worry, just keep saying your name is Waldo. And remember, the job here is the key to transferring you safely to the outside world.”
“When do we do that?” says Stan. Some beam-me-up Scotty slight of hand. An underground tunnel. Or what?
“You’ll be approached by someone here. The password is ‘Tiptoe Through the Tulips.’ I can’t tell you any more, in case you’re suspected and questioned. In a perfect world I’d be overseeing the questioning, but it’s not a perfect world.”
“Why would I be questioned?” says Stan. He doesn’t like any of this. Now that he’s getting close to it, he no longer wants to be shipped to the outside world, because who knows what extreme crap is going on out there? It’s most likely total anarchy by now. Given the choice, he’d elect to stay in Consilience, with Charmaine. If only he could rewind to day one, wipe all that Jasmine crap, treat Charmaine the way she wanted to be treated back then, whatever that was, so she’d never go wandering off. The mere thought of her, and of the house he once found so boring, makes him feel weepy.
But he can’t rewind anything. He’s stuck in the present. What are his options? He wonders what would happen if he snitched on Jocelyn. Her and her philandering scumbucket of a husband. But who would he snitch to? It would have to be someone in Surveillance, and whoever it is would surely report directly to Jocelyn herself, and then he’d be dogfood.
He’ll have to take his chances, go through with the Waldo charade, be Jocelyn’s courier, in the name of freedom and democracy, no doubt. Not that he gives much of a flying fuck about freedom and democracy, since they haven’t performed that well for him personally.
“You’re unlikely to be questioned so long as you stick to the Waldo cover,” says Jocelyn. “But there are no unsinkable boats. I’m late for that meeting. Here’s your Waldo nametag. All clear?”
“Sure,” he says, though it’s clear as rust paint. “Where do I go now?”
“Through that door,” says Jocelyn. “Good luck, Stan. You’re doing fine so far. I’m counting on you.” She pecks him on the cheek.
His impulse is to wrap his arms around her, clutch on to her like a lifeline, but he resists it.
Ajar
Charmaine has a little time before the car arrives to take her for the X-ray; not that she thinks she needs an X-ray, but better to humour them. She wanders around the house – her house – putting things back in order. The tea towels, the pot holders. She hates it when the kitchen implements are left lying around, like the corkscrew. That corkscrew has definitely been put to use, by Max and his wife. They’ve always been slack on the tidying details.
In the living room there’s a table lamp out of place. She’ll fix that later: she doesn’t feel like crawling around on the floor looking for the wall socket. And there’s something in the DVD player of the flatscreen TV: its little light is flashing. What has Max been watching? Not that she’s still obsessed with him, not after the shock she’s had. Killing Stan has wiped Max from her mind.
She pushes Play.
Oh. Oh
What to do with it? Putting it in the trash would be fatal: someone might find it. And if she breaks it into pieces, all the more reason for them to reconstruct it. She takes it into the kitchen, slides it in between the refrigerator and the wall. There. Not a terrific hidey-hole, but she’s improvised hidey-holes in the past, and that worked out okay, so it’s better than nothing.
Act normal, Charmaine, she tells herself. Supposing you can remember what normal is.
She’s unsteady on her feet, but she makes it to the powder room off the front hall, where she splashes water on her face, then wipes it off and leans in closer to the mirror. Her hair’s a bird’s nest, her eyes are puffy. Maybe some cold teabags? And she can spray product on her hair, which will keep it in place for the short-term.
Stan didn’t like the scent of the hair product: he said it made her smell like paint remover. She’s nostalgic even for his annoying put-downs.
Don’t cry any more, she tells herself. Just do one thing at a time. Get from hour to hour and day to day like a frog jumping on lily pads. Not that she has ever seen a frog doing that except on TV.
Her makeup and stuff is in the bedroom. She stands at the bottom of the stairs, looking up. It seems like a long climb. Maybe down to the cellar first, check out her locker. Get out of this stupid floral print blouse, find the right one, the peach with the ruffles. It’s easier to go downstairs than up. As long as you don’t fall down them, Charmaine, she warns herself.
Her knees are weak. Hold on to the railing. That’s the girl, as Grandma Win would say. Put one foot on the first stair, then the other one beside it, like when you were three. You need to take care of yourself, because who else will?
There. Standing on the solid cellar floor, swaying like a, like a. Swaying.
Now she’s standing beside the four lockers, which are side by side. They’re horizontal, with lids that lift up, like freezer chests. Her locker, pink. Stan’s, green. Then the lockers of the Alternates, which are purple and red. The red one is Max’s, and the purple one belongs to that wife of his, whom Charmaine hates on principle. If she could wave a magic wand and make both of those lockers disappear, she would, because then she could make that whole chunk of the past disappear as well. None of it would ever have happened, and Stan would still be alive.
She leans over to punch in the code for her locker. The lid is open a little, from whoever has been rummaging in her things. Here’s the peach blouse. She takes off her suit jacket and the blue print blouse and struggles into the peach one. Struggles, because one of her shoulders is sore: she must have hit it when she passed out. Doing up the buttons is hard because of her shaky fingers, but she manages it. She puts the suit jacket back on. Now she feels less discordant.
And here are all her civilian clothes, including the ones she had on the last time she checked in at Positron. The cherry-coloured pullover, the white bra. Someone must have brought them back here and put them away; they must have her code. Well, of course they have her code, because they have everyone’s code.
She used to hide things in this locker. She used to think they were truly hidden. How silly that had been. She’d bought that cheap fuchsia lipstick that smelled like bubble gum so she could put kisses on her notes for Max
But it’s gone. It isn’t there.
She feels around with her hands. She needs to bring a flashlight: it’s most likely rolled out somehow when whoever it was pawed through her stuff. She’ll find it later, and when she does she’ll throw it far, far away. It’s a memento, and memento means something that helps you remember. She’d rather have a forgetto.
It’s a joke. She has made a joke.
You are a shallow, frivolous person, says the little voice. Can’t you keep it in your stupid head that Stan is …
Not another word, she tells it. She shuts the top of her locker, codes it CLOSED. As she turns to leave, she sees that the top of Stan’s green locker is ajar. Someone’s been in there too. She knows she shouldn’t look in. It will be bad for her to see Stan’s familiar clothes, all neatly folded – the summer T-shirts, the fall fleece jacket he used to wear when he pruned the hedge. She’ll start thinking about how those clothes are empty of Stan forever, and she’ll start crying again, and then it will be the puffy eyes, only twice as puffy.