The Book of Strange New Things(106)

His dishdasha – clean now, apart from the ink stain which had faded to a blurry lilac – was suspended from an indoor clothesline operated by a simple mechanical pulley. Once again, Peter was struck by USIC’s apparent preference for low-tech solutions. He would’ve expected an electric clothes dryer with a menu of computerised choices; a million megawatts of energy on tap just to rinse the sweat out of a pair of socks. Even the washing machine – which he hadn’t used yet – had a placard stuck to the top saying CONSERVE WATER – COULD THIS LOAD BE HAND-WASHED? To which a previous occupant of the room had added, in felt-tip: ARE YOU OFFERING, LADY?

Who wrote this? One of the nameless employees who hadn’t lasted more than a couple of weeks before going insane? Mind you, the way Grainger had looked at him when she picked him up, it was clear she wondered if he was going insane too. Or if he was about to disappear over the same horizon as Tartaglione and Kurtzberg.

Still naked after his shower, Peter stood in front of the mirror and examined the changes that his sojourn among the Oasans had wrought. It was true that the tips of his ears were burnt. There were also ridges of crusted sunburn along the furrows of his brows. Nothing spectacular. Overall, his skin was tanned and healthy-looking. He’d lost weight, and his ribs were showing. He’d just shaved off his beard, and noted that the slight swell of fat under his chin had gone, giving him a sharper facial appearance, a less mild-mannered look. That look had always been deceptive, anyway. In his homeless years, he’d exploited his soft features, radiating an air of bourgeois decency to make people think it was safe to leave him alone in their kitchen or in the back seat of their car for ten minutes. During which he would steal their cameras, their mobiles, their jewellery, whatever was in easy reach. And an hour later he would be selling it, and half an hour after that he would be snorting or swallowing the proceeds.

All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. That was one of the main verses that had saved him, in the end: one of those Bible soundbites that everybody knows but nobody really understands until they’re going down for the last time, choking to death on their own filth.

He sprinkled talcum powder in the clefts of his groin, which were a little sore. His scrotum had a few small scabs on the tender flesh – from scratching, obviously, although he couldn’t remember breaking the skin. The scabs were dark and clean. Within a day or two, they would vanish. The tops of his ears and the furrows of his brow would shed feathery shreds of white epidermis, revealing hard fresh pink underneath. His concave stomach would fill out, if he ate a few hearty meals. The fungal growth between his toes would clear up after a few applications of the lotion Grainger had given him. The pads of oedema in his knees and ankles would shrink away.

If Bea saw him right now, she might be alarmed at the state he was in. She hated to see his skin broken; she would fuss over the merest scratch on his hand, insist on putting Band-Aids on cuts that would be half-healed by the evening. One of her favourite places to kiss him was on his fingertips, whenever he’d bitten a nail to the quick. She’d have plenty to kiss at the moment.

He had not yet written to her. There were at least twenty-five messages banked up. Three or four had arrived in the last few hours, since Bea had calculated he must be back. He was not ready to face her, not even through the veil of the written word. He needed to reacclimatise to life outside the Oasan settlement. He needed to adjust to the complicated trivia of human intercourse.

‘So, how were the folks in Freaktown?’

Tuska was smiling broadly, to show he meant no offence. His beard was quite thick by now, mostly grey, which made him look older, and his neck was red from scratching where the wiry hairs tickled his skin. Peter could tell at a glance that the beard’s days were numbered: Tuska would shave it off very soon. Why did humans have this compulsion to change their outward appearance, only to revert to what suited them? What on earth was the point?

‘Uh . . . they were fine,’ he replied, a few seconds too late. ‘They’re good people.’

‘Yeah?’ said Tuska. ‘How can you tell?’

They were sitting at a table in the USIC mess hall. Tuska was tucking into spaghetti Bolognese (whiteflower spaghetti, whiteflower ‘mince’, imported tomato sauce, imported herbs) and Peter was eating a pancake (100% local). The air was full of noises: the sound of rain pelting rhythmically against the windows, the mingled conversations of other employees, the clattering of meal trays, the scraping of chairs, the opening and shutting of doors, and Frank Sinatra crooning ‘My Funny Valentine’. It all seemed a grossly excessive amount of bustle and chatter to Peter, but he knew the problem was his perception, and he must try to get in the swing of it. The metaphorical swing, that is: no amount of effort could reconcile him to Frank Sinatra.

A pair of fingers clicked near his face. ‘Peter, are you with us?’ said Tuska.

‘Sorry. I really dislike this kind of music.’

It was an evasive answer, but also true. Sinatra’s self-congratulatory gargle, amplified to be audible over the din, was nudging him across a threshold of tolerance, like repeated pokes in the ribs from a prankster.

‘I can live with it,’ shrugged Tuska. ‘It’s just ripples in the airwaves, Peter. Molecules getting excited for a few seconds and then settling down again. Nothing to get riled about.’

‘Each day is Valentine’s day,’ smarmed Sinatra, as Tuska assembled another forkload of spaghetti.