Mood Indigo

  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.

  52

  ‘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 …’

  ‘Don’t we make fodder cannons here?’ asked Colin.

  ‘We do,’ said the man, ‘but we’ve only just completed our programme for the last war. So of course they don’t work very well and have to be scrapped. As they’re very strongly made it’s taking us quite a time.’

  There was a knock on the door and the quartermaster appeared, pushing a white sterilized trolley. Under a white cloth there was a slight bulge. This wouldn’t have happened with strictly cylindrical barrels and Colin felt very worried. The quartermaster went out and closed the door.

  ‘Ah! …’ said the man. ‘It still doesn’t look as if they’re right.’

  He lifted the cloth. There were twelve cold blue steel barrels – and, at the end of each, a beautiful white rose was in full bloom, with drops of dew and beige shadows in the curves of its velvety petals.

  ‘Oh! …’ gasped Colin. ‘Aren’t they lovely! …’

  The man said nothing. But he coughed twice.

  ‘There’ll be no point in you coming back tomorrow,’ he said after a moment’s hesitation.

  His fingers touched the end of the trolley nervously.

  ‘Can I take them for Chloe?’ said Colin.

  ‘They’ll die,’ said the man, ‘if you pluck them from the steel. They’re made of steel too, you know …’

  ‘They can’t be …’ said Colin.

  He delicately touched one of the roses and tried to snap its stem. His finger slipped and one of the petals made a cut several inches long in his hand. His hand began to bleed and he put it to his mouth to stick the dark blood that began to pulse out. He looked at the red curve on the white petal. The man tapped him on the shoulder and gently showed him the door.

  53

  Chloe was asleep. During the day the water-lily let her borrow the beautiful creamy colour of its flesh, but while she slept it was hardly worth while, and the pink flushed back into her cheeks. Her eyes made two blue stains below her hazy brows, and from a distance it was impossible to tell whether they were open or shut. Colin was sitting waiting on a chair in the dining-room. Chloe was surrounded by many different kinds of flowers. He could spare an hour or two before going to look for another job. He wanted to take a rest so that he could make a good impression and get something really remunerative. It was almost dark in the room. The window was now only three inches above the sill and the light crept in through a narrow slit. It fell just on his eyes and forehead. The rest of his face remained in shadow. The record-player no longer worked. Now it had to be wound up for every record and that tired him out. The records were wearing out too. You could hardly recognize the tunes on some of them. If Chloe needed something, he knew that the mouse would come and tell him straight away. Was Nicholas going to marry Isis? What kind of dress would she wear for her wedding? Who was ringing at the door?

  ‘Hello, Alyssum,’ said Colin. ‘Have you come to see Chloe?’

  ‘No,’ said Alyssum. ‘I’ve just come.’

  They might as well stay in the dining-room. Alyssum’s hair made it lighter there. And there were two chairs left.

  ‘Were you fed up?’ said Colin. ‘I know what it can be like.’

  ‘I’ve left Chick there,’ said Alyssum. ‘At home. He’s all right.’

  ‘You must have something to tell me,’ said Colin.

  ‘No,’ said Alyssum. ‘I’ve got to find somewhere else to stay.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Colin. ‘He’s redecorating …’

  ‘No,’ said Alyssum. ‘He’s got all his books all round him, but he doesn’t want me any more.’

  ‘Did you have a row?’ said Colin.

  ‘No,’ said Alyssum.

  ‘He just misunderstood what you said to him. But when he’s calmed down you can talk it all over with him.’

  ‘He simply told me that he had just enough doublezoons to get his latest book bound in nulskin,’ said Alyssum, ‘and he couldn’t bear to keep me with him because he had nothing to give me and I’d grow old and ugly wearing my hands out.’

  ‘Of course he’s right,’ said Colin. ‘You mustn’t go out to work.’

  ‘But I love Chick,’ said Alyssum. ‘I’d have worn my fingers to the bone for him.’

  ‘That wouldn’t do any good,’ said Colin. ‘Nobody would allow you to – you’re too pretty.’

  ‘Why did he kick me out?’ said Alyssum. ‘Did I really used to be very pretty?’

  ‘I don’t remember,’ said Colin. ‘But I know that I’m very fond of your hair, your face and your figure.’

  ‘Look,’ said Alyssum.

  She stood up, pulled the little ring at the top of her zip, and her dress fell to the ground. It was a light woollen dress.

  ‘Mmmm …’ said Colin.

  It became very light in the room and Colin could see every inch of Alyssum. Her breasts seemed ready to take off, and the calves and thighs of her long nimble legs were firm and warm to the touch.

  ‘Is one allowed to kiss?’ said Colin.

  ‘Yes,’ said Alyssum. ‘I’m very fond of you too.’

  ‘You’ll catch cold,’ said Colin.

  She went close to him. She sat on his knees and tears began to stream silently from her eyes.

  ‘Why doesn’t he want me any more?’

  Colin gently cuddled her.

  ‘He doesn’t understand. You know, Alyssum, he’s a good kid, all the same …’

  ‘He used to love me lots,’ said Alyssum. ‘He thought his books would be willing to share him with me! But that’s impossible.’

  ‘You’ll catch cold,’ said Colin.

  He kissed her and stroked her hair.

  ‘Why didn’t I meet you first?’ said Alyssum. ‘I’d have given you just as much love – but I can’t now. It’s him I love.’

  ‘I know that,’ said Colin. ‘I love Chloe more than anyone now, too.’

  He made her stand up and picked up her dress.

  ‘Put it on again, pet,’ he said. ‘You’ll catch cold.’

  ‘I won’t,’ said Alyssum. ‘And it wouldn’t matter if I did.’

  And she put on her dress again as if in a dream.

  ‘I don’t like the idea of you being sad,’ said Colin.

  ‘You’re sweet,’ said Alyssum, ‘but I am very sad. I think there might still be something I could do for Chick, all the same.’

  ‘Go home and see your parents,’ said Colin. ‘They’re bound to be pleased to see you … Or go and see Isis.’

  ‘Chick won’t be there,’ said Alyssum. ‘And I don’t want to be anywhere if Chick isn’t there too.’

  ‘He’ll come,’ said Colin. ‘I’ll go and see him.’

  ‘Don’t,’ said Alyssum. ‘You won’t be able to get in. He always locks the door.’

  ‘I’ll see him all the same,’ said Colin. ‘If not, then he’ll come round to see me.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Alyssum. ‘It’s not the same Chick any more.’

  ‘Of course it is,’ said Colin. ‘People don’t change, only things!’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Alyssum.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ said Colin. ‘I’ve got to go out and look for a job.’

  ‘I’m not going that way,’ said Alyssum.

&n
bsp; ‘Then I’ll come down the stairs with you,’ said Colin.

  She was standing in front of him. He put his two hands on her shoulders. He could feel her warm neck and her soft curling hair close to his skin. He followed the outline of her body with his hands. She had stopped weeping. She did not seem to be there at all.

  ‘I don’t want you to do anything stupid,’ said Colin.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Alyssum. ‘I won’t …’

  ‘Come and see me again,’ said Colin, ‘next time you’re fed up …’

  ‘Perhaps I’ll take you up on that,’ said Alyssum.

  She looked farther inside the flat. Colin took her hand. They went down the stairs. Every so often they slipped on the damp treads. At the bottom Colin said good-bye to her. She stood and watched him go.

  54

  The latest one was just back from the binder’s and Chick lovingly stroked it before putting it back in its wrapping. It was bound in rich green nulskin with the name Heartre deeply and blindly tooled into the spine. On one shelf Chick had the whole of the ordinary edition of his works. The variants, manuscripts, proofs and special pages occupied various niches set into the wall.

  Chick sighed. Alyssum had left him that morning. He had to tell her to go. All he had left was one doublezoon and a piece of cheese. Her dresses in the wardrobe were getting in the way of Heartre’s old clothes that his bookseller could always work miracles and get for him. He couldn’t remember the last time he had kissed her. His time was too precious to be wasted on kissing her. His record-player had had to be mended so that he could learn Heartre’s lectures by heart. If the records should get broken, then the words would still be preserved.

  Every one of Heartre’s books was there – every one of his published works. There were luxurious bindings, books carefully protected by leather cases, golden toolings, precious editions with wide blue margins, limited printings on fly-paper and others on blank partridge or rice caper. A complete wall was reserved for them, honeycombed into cute little pigeon-holes lined with genuine high-quality suede. Each work occupied one pigeon-hole. On the wall opposite, arranged in paperback piles, were Heartre’s articles and interviews, all fervently snipped from magazines, newspapers and the innumerable periodicals that he deigned to favour with his prolific collaboration.