Shades of Grey (44 page)

“Thanks for the advice,” I replied in a humorless tone.

He smiled, said it was nothing and departed.

“Clifton keeps us well fed with Violet’s tittle-tattle,” said Jane as we walked on, “so his position within the Hierarchy is not totally one sided. In fact, your marriage will cut off a very useful gossip stream.”

“I’m not getting back from High Saffron,” I said, “remember?”

“Then perhaps we’re safe after all. The cash helps, too. Here we are.”

We had arrived at a plain front door at the end of the terrace, and Jane knocked twice. The man who answered the door was Graham, the elderly man who’d had the sniffles.

“Enjoying your retirement?” I asked.

“What retirement? Mrs. Gamboge has me on part-time work.”

I asked him how this was possible, and he responded that Sally Gamboge was a master at finding ways to extract every last ounce of sweat from the Greyforce.

“We came to look at the Vermeer,” said Jane to Graham. “I brought you some cake.”

Mr. G-67 thanked her and then showed us upstairs, where the painting was hanging in a room all by itself. There was a linen-covered roof-light and a plain viewing bench to sit on.

“It’s quite lovely,” I said after a minute’s silence.

The canvas was of a woman pouring milk out of a jug and into a bowl. In front of her was a small table with a basket of bread laid upon it, and the whole scene looked as though it had been lit from a window to the left—although of the window itself there was no sign. The canvas had several scorch marks along the bottom of the frame, and the paint had come away in patches, but there was still enough that was wonderful.

“I’m told her tunic is yellow and her dress blue,” observed Graham. “The Greens come up here quite a lot to practice their color separation. We had someone around last month who was ticking Vermeers off her I-Spy book. Seen all eight, she said. I’ll leave you to it.”

I sat down on the viewing bench, leaving ample room for Jane, but she remained standing. I decided to pop the question. “I’d like you to come with me to High Saffron.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I never do death on a first date. Have you found out anything more about the Colorman?”

I shook my head.

“Then perhaps you should start going through his valise. See what you can find out.”

“You’re joking!”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

“No. But—”

I stopped because there was a mild commotion outside, and Jane moved to the window.

“What on earth are they doing here?” she murmured, and made her way swiftly out of the door. Intrigued, I followed. But she didn’t exit out of the front of the house, where the commotion was; she made for the rear, through Graham’s kitchen. When I tried to follow, the elderly Grey stood in my path and looked at me in a way that, while not openly hostile, made me realize that the only way out of the house was the way I came in.

I stepped into the street and was met by a brilliant flash of yellow. It was Sally Gamboge, Courtland, Bunty McMustard and even little Penelope. They were striding down the street and didn’t look as though they were here to see the Vermeer.

“A
h!” said Sally Gamboge when she saw me. “We were told you were in the zone. Reason?”

“The Vermeer.”

“Of course,” she replied, “what other reason
could
you have?

We’re here to help you conduct your chair census.”

“You are?”

“Yes indeed,” replied Bunty in a friendly manner that was completely at odds with her hue, “since you have so selflessly committed yourself to the exploration of High Saffron, we thought we would selflessly commit ourselves to helping you finish the task that you were sent here to do.”

“You don’t mind us helping, do you?” asked Sally Gamboge, who wore a smile wholly alien to her features. “Well—”

She didn’t wait for an answer, and instead went to the first door and banged three times in a way that wasn’t designed to be friendly. A middle-aged man answered, and started when he saw the unwelcome flash of synthetic yellow on his doorstep.

“Chair census,” announced Mrs. Gamboge, “by order of Head Office. You have no objections, I trust?” It wasn’t a question she actually wanted or needed an answer for, and she swiftly directed her charges to conduct a “full chair search” while I stood on the step with the resident.

“Hello,” I said. “Edward Russett.”

“Hello,” said the man, glaring at me suspiciously.

“It’s a Head Office assignment,” I said, feeling a bit stupid.

“And that gives you the freedom to look through my house?”

“Anyone conducting a census is an agent of Head Office, and has right of access.”

“Hmm,” he said doubtfully. “Aren’t you the one starting a Question Club?”

“I hope so.”

“Then you can ask this: Why did the Previous insist on separate taps for hot and cold?”

“Why not raise the question yourself at the first meeting? I may not be able to make it.”

The Yellows all trooped out a few minutes later, and reported seven chairs, two sofas and a piano stool.

“Thank you for your time,” I said as politely as I could, and followed the Gamboges and Bunty as they moved next door. They were already beginning to attract a small group of Greys. It was early afternoon, and the zone was mostly empty—but then I didn’t think they would have attempted a census when people were at home.

Mrs. Gamboge knocked at the door of the next house, and it opened to reveal a young woman who stared at the prefect in an insolent manner that, if outside the Greyzone, would have instantly led to a heavy demerit.

“Chair census,” announced Sally Gamboge, “by order of Head Office.”

The young Grey looked at us all in turn. “Right. And I’m the Colorman.”

The impertinence was too much for Courtland. “Are you calling my mother a liar, Wendy?”

“We don’t have many Rules in our favor,” she retorted, “but privacy of dwelling is one of them.”

“Russett,” said the prefect, “show Wendy your assignment.”

I told her I didn’t have it with me, but Bunty produced it like a conjuring trick.

“I took the liberty of fetching it from your bedroom,” she said, handing it over.

“That seems to be in order,” murmured the Grey after studying my assignment carefully, and the Yellows walked in without another word. They were more cautious this time, as though expecting a Riffraff snare under the hall carpet or something.

“Sorry about this,” I said to Wendy as we stood in the hall. She didn’t answer, and instead glared at me until the Yellows returned with a list of chairs in their notebooks.

“Listen,” I said as Mrs. Gamboge was about to knock on the door of the next dwelling, “this is all a bit awkward—why don’t we ask the Greys to do a self-declaration?”

“That would be a waste of time,” declared Bunty. “Greys are the most
consummate
of liars.”

“You don’t actually have to be here at all,” added Penelope, who despite being the smallest and youngest, managed to ooze just as much unpleasantness as the rest of them. “Why don’t you bog off home and leave the serious census taking to the professionals?”

“I’m staying,” I said.

Mrs. Gamboge grunted, and knocked on the next door. She took a step back when the door was answered—by
Jane
.

“Well, well,” she said, “you don’t see a Yellow in the Greyzone for years, and then four come along together.”

“This isn’t your house, Jane,” observed Mrs. Gamboge suspiciously.

“The Rot take your hue, Gamboge.”

They all took a sharp intake of breath, and I could see them rankle at not just the insult, but the supreme lack of respect that accompanied it.

“Three days to go until the Night Train,” remarked Sally, “and
still
unrepentant. I pity your poor Reboot mentor. Mind you, there’s always the Magnolia Room for hard nuts. Show her your warrant, Russett.”

Jane read the assignment, then waved the Yellows past.

“What’s going on, Jane?”

“Did I say you could use my name?”

“No.”

“Then don’t. Now, I want you to stop all this.”

“I don’t have any control over the Yellows.”

“Come on, Red—show some grit for a change. Stand up and be counted.”

I took a deep breath. “I want you to come with me to High Saffron.”

“And I told you: I don’t do death on a first date.”

“You could do with the merits. You could buy your way out of Reboot. You said yourself that legging it on the conveyor or staying at Rusty Hill wasn’t an ideal situation.”

Courtland walked past. Jane put out her foot and he stumbled on it, glared at her and then went into the basement.

“Watch out for that one. The village will go all to Beige in a match pot when his mother retires. You and I are going to have to take care of him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Take him out,” she said, “you and me. Together. Now
that
would be a first date to remember.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, hoping she was pulling my leg, “I never do death on a first date.”

She laughed. Delightfully so, in fact. But then her attention was taken by the Yellows, who were opening cupboards and drawers to “check for folding chairs,” as they put it, and Jane leaned forward and spoke in a urgent voice.

“But I’ve got to conduct my chair census. Orders from Head Office.”

“Plums to Head Office,” she replied. “You think the Yellows are
really
here to count chairs?”

“What else would they be doing?”

She sighed.

“It’s a merit sweep, dummy. They’re using your chair census as an excuse to go through our stuff and log infractions. The more demerits they find, the harder we have to work to earn them back. But they can only do it during an official Head Office census—it’s the Rules.”

“I go to High Saffron tomorrow.”

“Exactly. The census dies with you, so they’re just exploiting the opportunity while they can. The thing is, there is stuff here they shouldn’t find. Things that
have
to stay hidden. If they find them, the Yellows can’t leave the zone and will end up beneath a patio or something. Perhaps we’ll get away with it, but as likely as not we won’t. You want the death of four Yellows on your conscience?”

“Is this some sort of prank or something?”

She stared at me. It was clear that it wasn’t.

“What secret do you have here that you’d kill for?”

“Stop the search, Red. You can save the lives of four people you don’t much like, and who cause us untold misery. Sort of a weird ethical dilemma, isn’t it?”

“Will you come with me to High Saffron?”

“Red, you have to do this one for yourself.”

At that moment Sally Gamboge returned and barked out her chair tally. Before I could even
think
about Jane’s request, Sally Gamboge had moved next door and demanded entry. The Grey homeowner was older and less abrasive than Jane, and he started to panic. I caught Jane’s eye and she looked upward, toward the attic.

“I’ll do the top floor,” I announced. “It’s time I did some chair counting myself.”

The Yellows looked at one another but could raise no realistic objections, and I mounted the steep, narrow stairs to the third floor while Penelope and Bunty searched the second. The stair twisted back on itself, and by the time I got to the top landing and paused in the dim light from the skylight, my heart was beating fiercely. I grasped the handle and carefully opened the door.

The only light came from a thin, mullioned window at the far end, which afforded the room only meager light. I could just make out a small bed, a table, a bureau and a pitch-pine chest. There was a single chair in the middle of the room, and it was occupied by an old woman. She was dressed in a simple linen smock, had no spot or any merit badges and was knitting a long scarf that lay in an untidy cascade at her feet. Her hands were twisted and gnarled like old roots, and although I could see no detail in her face, her cheekbones were prominent and her slack skin hung in soft folds that jangled when she spoke. If she had not moved, I would have considered her to be sundried Nightloss, such that we find from time to time.

She stopped what she was doing when I walked in but didn’t look up—she simply listened in a peculiar manner.

“Jane?”

“No—Edward Russett.”

“The new swatchman’s son?”

“Yes, ma’am. What are you doing up here?”

“Not much,” she replied, “but I have my knitting—and
Renfrew
at bedtimes.”

She reached for the glass of water that was next to her, but she didn’t look—she just moved her fingertips across the tabletop until they encountered the glass, then grasped it. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, and I felt myself tremble. This was something I had never before encountered, nor ever thought I would.

“You’re . . .
blind!
”

She gave out a short laugh.

“We are
all
blind, Master Edward—just some more than others.”

“But you can’t be,” I blurted out. “As soon as poor sight becomes apparent, then Variant-B kicks in and, and, well—look here, you should be
studied
, not kept in an attic!”

“Hmm,” she said, “Jane told me you were a bit foolish. I have to stay hidden for I dispel fear, and fear is a commodity much needed by the Collective.”

“Fear of the night?”

“Yes; a couple of sightless people kicking around would really finish off that particular nonsense, now wouldn’t it?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Then you have fulfilled all that is expected of you. What’s going on downstairs?”