The Book of Strange New Things(163)

‘You came to fetch me,’ Peter reminded her.

She laughed out loud at his naivety. ‘That was on my own initiative, it had nothing to do with USIC. Those guys wouldn’t rescue their own mothers. I mean, literally. Why do you think they’re here in the first place? They’re cool, they might as well have SHIT HAPPENS tattooed on their foreheads.’

‘But they’ll notice you’re missing.’

‘Oh, I’m sure. Somebody will come to the pharmacy for a tube of wart-killer and I won’t be there and they’ll think, Hey, no sweat, a few warts ain’t so bad. And when I don’t turn up to test tomorrow’s food, Hey, it’s just a formality, we’ll eat it anyway. Maybe mention it at the next meeting.’

‘I can’t believe they’d be so unconcerned,’ said Peter, but his voice was weakened by uncertainty.

‘I know these guys,’ said Grainger. ‘I know how they operate. They noticed Kurtzberg and Tartaglione were missing – after God knows how long. What did they do? Did they send vehicles out in all directions, driving day and night until they covered every inch of a fifty-mile radius? Forget it, baby. Chill out and read a magazine. Flex a bicep. The f*cking world is falling apart and it still doesn’t rate as an emergency. Do you really think they’re gonna panic over us?’

‘I would hope so,’ said Peter.

‘Well, hope is a fine thing,’ she sighed.

They walked further, and began to tire.

‘Maybe we should stop walking,’ said Peter.

‘And do what instead?’

‘Rest a while.’

They sat on the earth and rested a while. Two cotton-wrapped, pink mammals marooned on a dark ocean of soil. Here and there, a few small clumps of whiteflower grew, sweating in the sunshine. Peter reached out to one near his foot, plucked off a fragment and put it in his mouth. It tasted bad. How strange that a substance which, when ingeniously processed, cooked and seasoned, could be delicious in so many ways, should be so unpleasant in its pure form.

‘Enjoying that?’ said Grainger.

‘Not much,’ he said.

‘I’ll wait till we’re back at the base,’ she said, lightly. ‘Good menu today. Chicken curry and ice cream.’ She smiled, willing him to forgive her earlier lapse of morale.

Not much refreshed, they walked on. And on. Grainger had drunk half a water bottle by now, and Peter drank his fill direct from the sky when, just as he’d foretold, another rain-shower drenched them.

‘Hey!’ called Grainger as he swayed erect and awkward, his head tilted back, Adam’s apple bobbing, mouth wide open to the downpour. ‘You look like a turkey!’

Peter put on a grin, as Grainger’s comment was clearly meant in fun, but he felt his grin falter as he realised that he’d forgotten what turkeys looked like. All his life he’d known, starting from the first day his parents had shown him a picture of one in a book. Now, in his brain’s storehouse, where so many Bible passages lay spotlit ready for quoting, he searched for a picture to go with ‘turkey’, and there was none to be found.

Grainger noticed. Noticed and was not pleased.

‘You don’t remember, do you?’ she said, as they sat down together once more. ‘You’ve forgotten what a turkey looks like.’

He confessed with a nod, caught out like a naughty child. Until now, only Bea had ever been able to guess what he was thinking.

‘Mental blank,’ he said.

‘That’s what happens,’ said Grainger, solemn and intense. ‘That’s what this place is about, that’s how it works. It’s like one huge dose of Propanolol, erasing everything we ever knew. You mustn’t let them break you.’

Her sudden vehemence discomfited him. ‘I . . . I’m probably just . . . absent-minded.’

‘That’s what you’ve gotta watch,’ she said, hugging her knees, contemplating the empty tundra ahead of them. ‘Absence. The slow, insidious . . . disposal of everything. Listen: you wanna know what got discussed at the last USIC personnel meeting? Besides technical stuff and the bad smell in the loading bay behind H wing? I’ll tell you: whether we really need all those pictures hanging in the hallways. They’re just a dusting and cleaning problem, right? An old photo of a city on earth somewhere, way back when, with a bunch of guys eating lunch on a steel girder, it’s cute but we’ve seen it a million times walking past it, it gets old, and anyway those guys are all dead, it’s like being made to look at a bunch of dead people, so enough already. Blank walls: clean and simple: end of story.’

Grainger raked her fingers through her clammy hair: an irritable gesture. ‘So . . . Peter . . . Let me remind you what a turkey is. It’s a bird. It’s got a kind of dangle of flesh hanging off of its beak, looks like a big trail of snot or . . . uh . . . a condom. Its head is red with little bumps on it, like lizard skin, and its head and neck are in an S-shape, and they go like this . . . ’ With her own head and neck she acted out the ungainly motion of the bird. ‘And then this scrawny, snake-like head and neck are attached to this oversized, fat, fluffy grey body.’ She looked Peter in the eyes. ‘Ring any bells?’

‘Yes, you’ve . . . uh . . . brought it back to life for me.’

Satisfied, she allowed herself to relax. ‘That’s it. That’s what we’ve got to do. Keep the memories alive.’ She arranged her body more comfortably on the ground, stretching out as if sunbathing, using the tote bag as a pillow. A brilliant-green insect settled on her shoulder and began to flex its hindquarters. She seemed unaware of it. Peter considered brushing it away, but let it be.