‘Is it really?’ Sallyann had asked, quite perturbed.
Danny had shaken his head. ‘Doubt it. I saw something like that in an old movie once though.’
He’d watched one of the riots from the top of the biker house and apparently that had been like the old movie too, when the ghosts of the angry dead had gone crazy and destroyed the estate that had scabbed their resting ground. Since then, Sallyann and Danny had made up an alternative history for Long Green Meadows. It passed the time.
‘We could get someone to make a film of it!’ Sallyann had said, daring to fantasise optimistically.
It cued a look from Danny. ‘Lovey, this already is a film.’
Sallyann had laughed then, but he hadn’t.
Downstairs, Sallyann’s mother is boiling the kettle. Sallyann can hear every detail of her mother’s movement; she clears her throat, her hip brushes the edge of the table as she sidles towards the sink. The house might as well be one big room, Sallyann thinks, and then wonders whether, if it was, they might have more space.
Her mother is a young woman. She had Sallyann when she was fifteen. Now, she’s thirty-two and her daughter is a woman too. She’s called Mel. Even though Mel won’t discuss her past with anyone, Sallyann knows her mother came from somewhere quite different to Long Green Meadows. She suspects that, contrary to most people’s situations, Mel lives on the estate by choice. She is a survivor; lean and lined maybe, but strong as a rope. Sallyann has never seen her depressed. The pair of them live on welfare from the local community care charity, and consequently have to spend a lot of time at the work centre putting useless information into computers, but Mel makes a bit of extra money for them, when she can, by dealing in speed and hash. Mel and Sallyann, like the majority of the people on the estate, are not without money. It’s just that there isn’t much to spend it on. Mel seems to know everyone in Long Green Meadows. She is called out to attend to would-be suicides, accidental overdoses, marital aggression and has even delivered babies, although the local Health Company fined her for that. Everyone hates the Health Company. The vaccination clinic is covered in graffiti and scorch marks. The windows are heavily wired over. Mel also runs a women’s group, which is a phenomenon in itself in such an environment. She believes strongly in female power, and has a planet-sized patience.
Some time ago a woman had come to Mel’s house who was dressed in a smart black suit. Sallyann believed her to be a Health Company woman. The woman had stayed for an hour, during which time the two women had talked continuously. Sallyann had been sitting upstairs, confident she’d be able to hear every word, but Mel had turned up the TV, which drowned out the conversation. Sallyann was sure the woman must have come to offer Mel a job, perhaps working for the Health Company itself, for that was surely the direction in which Mel’s talents lay. Also, people on the estate trusted her. Mel, however, refused to discuss the matter afterwards. She must have turned down the job.
Sallyann doesn’t know whether Mel will want to go to the Carnival or not. On those occasions when they’ve gone uptown together, Sallyann has always been alert for people in the crowds who might display some sign of recognition for Mel. So far, she has always been disappointed. Mel doesn’t like going uptown. Is this because she envies Those That Have, the people who inhabit the dockside complexes, the Japanese garden condos, the air studios? Sallyann doesn’t think so.
She pulls on her clothes; ex-patrol trousers Mel bought from an emergency sale, and a thin black t-shirt with a death’s-head design on the front. The bikers had given these shirts out to everyone who attended the funeral last time one of their tribe was killed. Sallyann always attends the funerals. Not just because of respect for Danny, although that is one of the reasons, but because there is always plenty to eat and drink. Sallyann pulls on her boots. She doesn’t wear underwear, scorning the disposable stretch-paper knickers and bra supplied by the Health Clinic. Her hair is a dark red colour, dyed by the vitamin juice that comes with the welfare cheque. A lot of girls on the estate use the stuff that way. Her face is strong and square and, although pale, surprisingly clear-skinned.
Downstairs, Mel is reconstituting eggs using bottled water. Both Mel and Sallyann prefer the dried eggs, which come from the TruGen labs to the fishy, watery ‘real’ eggs that they can buy at the mall.
‘Coming uptown today?’ Sallyann asks. She wants Mel to come with her.
Her mother gives her a sharp look. ‘Things to do,’ she says. ‘Sorry.’
Sallyann shrugs. ‘Oh well.’
‘Do you want to go?’ Mel asks.
Sallyann senses this is a testing question, perhaps to prompt a talk. Mel never tries to tell her daughter what to do, but sometimes can’t resist criticising her decisions in oratory. ‘Yeah, I think so.’
Mel nods. ‘Going alone?’
‘Dunno. ‘Spect someone else will be going.’
‘Then keep your eyes open.
‘I always do.’ Sallyann thinks Mel is trying to imply there’s something sinister about the Carnival. It’s been a media event for weeks. There will be performance art, circus acts, music, novelty stalls, and fortune tellers. Dominic Blair will appear in public. He’s king of the show, a divinely beautiful youth whose face appears everywhere. Teenage girls lust after him in their millions. Mel says he was grown in a vat. There are certain areas of the city where the estate dwellers can attend the carnival. Certain food companies have promised to donate free refreshments. The event is supposed to be a celebration to mark the latest scientific breakthrough; a discovery which means that poverty will soon be a thing of the past. Using the revolutionary method of molecular computers, old land will be reclaimed, machines will be built without human labour in a few seconds, food will be synthesised in any quantity. Sallyann and Mel had watched the cheery documentaries on TV, in between the feminist broadcasts, which claimed the world was in such a state because men were incompetent carers.
‘This is a new day for humankind,’ the government had announced with misty eyes.
‘For us?’ Sallyann had asked her mother, turning away from the TV.
Mel had been tatting lace from paper fibre; another subsidiary income. ‘I don’t believe they’ve done it,’ she’d said. ‘I don’t believe anything I hear coming out of that thing.’ Yet, despite this claim, she watches TV quite a lot.
At first, Sallyann had wanted to believe it, but she found that nearly everyone on the estate, who held an opinion on the subject, agreed with Mel. Including Danny. Even if the breakthrough had happened, it couldn’t possibly mean life would improve. The people dared not think otherwise. Hope was a thing of the past.
The dividing line between the estates that ring the city and Long Green Meadows is only one of many, and the inner city itself constitutes an arid expressway, a place where human feet never walk. Sallyann always expects to see dead animals lying on it, but there is never any sign of life or death. Discarded rubber tyres lie in the emergency stop lane. Nobody ever stops there. She is riding the Sprintertram, along with a few other young people from Long Green Meadows, who have also decided to sample the delights of the Carnival. All of them are making sarcastic remarks about it, because really they are embarrassed about wanting to go there. The tram slips down into sodium-lit tunnels, where eerie black cars slither past with hardly any sound. Soon, they will emerge from the comparative emptiness of estate-hugging roadways into the chaotic traffic jam of the city itself. It is eight o’clock in the morning. The journey will take two and a half hours. If someone were to walk on foot, they could make the trip in half an hour, but no one can walk across the expressway. If anyone tried, they’d be quickly picked up by surveillance monitors and arrested for jaywalking. That could mean a revocation of their city pass.
On the tram, there is a terminal where people can convert local currency into that of one of the city banks. It is possible to use estate currency in the city, in certain areas, but generally it is better to use one of the other banks, because it attracts less attention.
Naturally, there is a charge for this transaction, but at least today, the exchange rate is favourable. Sallyann is only three shillings down on her original money. In city currency, the shilling is the standard unit.
The air inside the tram heats up as it eases its way into the city concourses. It is as if the vehicle itself is becoming steamed up with impatience. Hawkers jump on board selling tickets for city restaurants, distributing flyers for night-club venues and commercial whore-palaces. The tram crawls past gigantic hoardings: ‘The Temple is Built on Blood!’ declares one advertisement. It is for a loan company. Gold lettering, ten feet high, superimposed over a photograph of a sunset, against which the stark, black silhouette of an ancient ruin stands. Sallyann cannot remember having seen it before. For a few moments, she ponders the meaning of it, before her friend, a fierce black girl called Terror (loved by many, a femme fatale of cruelty and claws) distracts her by biting her arm. Terror is very excited about the Carnival.
Finally, with the unseasonal heat scorching the polarised windows, the tram eases its way gratefully into one of main city terminals. Sallyann and the others disembark, throwing themselves into the tide of humanity that is milling, in apparent confusion, among the tram stalls. An undeniable sense of celebration pervades the air. Brightly coloured balloons are bobbing against the green glass roof of the terminal. Streamers flutter from the fast food booths, magazines and posters are on sale everywhere, telling people the best spots to visit, what they can find there. A few enterprising street entertainers jostle for space among the crowds, attempting to perform mime plays or juggle knives. A group of Dominic Blair fan club operatives, dressed in white with artificial poppies pinned in their hair, are distributing leaflets offering cheap rates for club membership. Terror takes one, making the remark that she’d only join the club if her membership fee included a night with the King. The girl in white smiles, nods, and makes an escape. Terror laughs greedily.
Against the wall, by the passenger exit doorway, a row of maimed professional beggars are sitting in an untidy line. As Sallyann and her companions shuffle through, Sallyann notices that three or four of the beggars are listlessly beating another, who is lying prone, with their aluminium crutches. People are throwing them coins, smiling.
Outside, Sallyann and Terror link arms and decide to leave their companions behind and venture off alone. Terror thinks the other estate kids are too obvious about where they come from. Sallyann, on the other hand, is considered cool. The main street outside the terminal has been closed to traffic, although a number of cabs are parked along the kerb. Terror buys a photocopied pamphlet off a couple of kids in fancy dress that explains where the main Carnival events are taking place, and to which ones their passes will permit them entrance. Most of the people around them are from other estates, although a few daring inner city kids are there, in blue and green makeup. The hippest of that tribe will attend only the ‘alternative’ carnival, hoping for a little excitement with the have-nots.
Terror wants to go and see Dominic Blair. His float is due to go down Government Drive at five o’clock. ‘We won’t be able to see anything,’ Sallyann says, who had been hoping they’d be wildly drunk at the reggae festival by then, physically unable to go anywhere.
‘Course we will,’ Terror insists, prodding the pamphlet in illustration. ‘See, we can follow the float to Ecstasy Common. There’ll be a concert there. Dominic’s ending the Carnival – with us, the scummers.’ She flutters her eyelids. ‘Aren’t we lucky! Look, there’s free food and drink. We can’t miss it.’
‘But the reggae...’
Terror pulls a face. ‘Oh come on! It’ll be much better at the Blair gig. More for us to help ourselves to, anyway.’
Sallyann can’t contain her irritation. ‘Hmmph! You should like the reggae better. Isn’t it your cultural music or something? Why go to this pathetic commercial shit?’
‘We can go to the reggae afterwards,’ Terror continues, unperturbed. ‘The Blair gig finishes at ten. That leaves hours until the last tram and look, the two sites aren’t that far apart.’ She then proceeds to indulge in some heavy duty pleading and begging, which Sallyann can’t resist.
They walk up to Harmony Mall, caged by the crowds. Here, a street market has been set up and everyone is wearing period costume from the 1990s. Memorabilia is on sale; magazines, clothes accessories, half-used plastic cases of makeup that are dim with age and smell of old women. Sallyann wants to spend her money carefully; preferably on some gold standard hash at the reggae festival, good beer and a few luxury foods she wouldn’t normally eat. Terror, however, spends her funds lavishly on tat.
A public address system fills the air with the sound of joyous songs celebrating the Breakthrough. Video monitors are strung across the streets, displaying promos for all the new products that will soon be available. Terror and Sallyann pause to watch one about cosmetic surgery. There is a foul scene of cutting and slicing, depicting the past, followed by that of an already beautiful woman sitting up in a health centre bed, being given a pill that contains the scientific magick that will transform her shape while she sleeps. And all this will be so cheap! declares a honey-soft voice as the woman sinks back gratefully into her bed and a uniformed nurse draws a gauzy curtain over the window, smiling gently over her shoulder at the patient.
‘Man, it’s so neat!’ Terror says. ‘Come on, Sal. What’d you change if you got the chance?’
‘My friends,’ Sallyann replies dryly.
At two o’clock, they drift into a plaza where a play is being enacted. The play is a musical. It depicts an historical event, the downfall of Christianity, when a huge conspiracy had been discovered by the media. The headlines had screamed that, in fact, all priests and nuns were really Satanists and had been running the paedophile network for centuries. Even though everyone read the daily reports hungrily, they were aware the whole thing was a crazy invention, just like all the other wild exposes. But too much damage had been done by the time the media noticed the momentum of the event was slowing down, and decided to unmask as liars the children who’d first informed on the Church.
A woman is standing on the stage, wearing a nun’s costume, sweating in the hot smog. ‘I am a Bride of Christ!’ she sings. To the side, child actors in the roles of lying protagonists, stand in an impish line. Terror is tapping her foot to the tune, because the video’s been on TV a lot recently.
‘This is boring,’ Sallyann announces. ‘I want to go to the funfair.’
Reluctantly, Terror allows herself to be dragged away. Unfortunately, by the time they reach the funfair, the rides have all been temporarily closed. An accident with the Shooting Star has put eight people in hospital. Funfair employees wearing stifling furry animal suits are still hosing down the blood. The broken Shooting Star is a sprawl of huge metal limbs, crumpled over the fast food booths, other rides, the ground. Loudspeakers are churning out the sound of a women’s choir singing-in the New Age. ‘Sisters, sisters! It is up to us now!’ It is a sibilant exhortation, somehow urgent.
Sallyann, eating a pink floss of spun sugar, catches sight of a giant hoarding behind the spines of the Heavenly Spiral ride: ‘The Temple is Built on Blood!’ She can see now that, in the photograph, the steps of the ruin are crowded with pale figures. Then, a troupe of aerial dancers, borne aloft by rotor suits, swarm across the hoarding in a blitz of red and yellow and neon purple. Sallyann watches them for a moment, then turns away. Daytime firecrackers, thrown by the aerial dancers, explode in unbearable brilliance overhead.
‘So where now?’ Sallyann asks, throwing away the stick of her spun sugar. She peers over Terror’s shoulder, who is busy consulting the pamphlet again.
‘There’s another fair a few streets away,’ Terror says, ‘and there should be a parade along soon.’
‘What of?’
Terror laughs. ‘Working people through the ages!’
‘How colourful! Where’s the music? I want music.’ Sallyann wriggles. ‘I wanna dance!’
In the next street, the crowds surge aside from a battalion of waste consumption machines that are humming down the middle of the road eating garbage. ‘Mind your children! Mind your children!’ yells the consensual artificial voice of the machines.
Terror shouts abuse at a bunch of drunken city boys. ‘You want fucking? I’ll tell you how to fuck!’ she yells. ‘C’mere and say that.’
The youths are not aware of Terror’s fighting prowess. Sallyann, however, certainly is, and welcomes the prospect of a new diversion. Disappointingly, the youths only slink off uncertainly down the street, drawn by the more passive prey of a couple of younger girls in less aggressive costume further along.
‘Shits!’ Terror declares.
A few months ago, gangs of inner city youths had been making drunken forays into estate territory, in order to rape women. The biker tribes had stepped up their vigilante patrols and sometimes there’d been bloody fights. Since then, the craze appeared to be dying out.
‘I’m gonna come uptown one night with the girls,’ Terror growls. ‘We’re gonna kill some of them.’
Sallyann laughs. ‘Here? How? You’d never manage it before you were arrested.’
Terror snarls sideways at her companion. ‘You know nothing, lady! It happens. I heard about it. The Razor Bitches came into town from Sweet Pastures a few weeks ago. Killed ten. I heard it.’
‘Wasn’t on the news,’ Sallyann says, aware even before she’s finished speaking how naive that sounds. She laughs to compensate. ‘But of course it wasn’t!’
Terror smirks back. ‘Well? Fancy some of that action?’
‘Nah.’ Sallyann would rather just keep away, or hide behind the protection of Danny and his tribe.
In the humid heat of a giant marquee, Terror and Sallyann drink away the afternoon. At least the beer is kept in refrigerators. This is a luxury Sallyann can’t resist. It has been worth coming, she decides, if only for this. Never mind the sleek uptowners swanking their fashions, their accessories and their money before her eyes. Never mind the clean streets and well-stocked shops. She closes her eyes and drinks deep. This is good! Music pounds through the fibres of her body and she sways to its rhythm.