The Beneath (8 page)

CHAPTER 7

I went to bed still rocked by Aria’s revelations. Fifteen children! And starting so young too. I couldn’t imagine what my life would be like if I was expected to start having children instead of going on to do my A levels. I would have run away too, faced with the same prospect.

I found myself lying awake late into the night wondering about our different worlds. Aria had settled down in Marjorie’s flat quite happily, and seemed OK about being alone. The Community clearly didn’t set much store on individuality, so learning how to manage in this strange new world without support would have been almost impossible, and yet again it made me wonder about how she would have survived had she not met me. Despite her strangeness I enjoyed having her around, and I already thought of her as a friend. It made
me realise how much I had been missing the girls I used to count as friends, before Jenny turned them all against me.

It had been such a gift for her. I’d gone from being the popular rich girl to being an outcast almost overnight when my dad was splashed all over the papers, in disgrace because of some banking scandal that I didn’t understand. Our humiliation as a family didn’t take long, and when Dad got offered a job in Shanghai everything left was sold off. I said that I wanted to stay and do my GCSEs, assuming that Mum would stay with me, but instead they moved me in with Nan and left anyway. Jenny loved it.

Thinking about the girls at school reminded me that the end of term was looming ever closer. It would be great to have Aria around to hang out with all day during the holidays, but with absolutely no money what were we going to do? Everything in London cost such a lot. I’d only really noticed that since my allowance had stopped. I couldn’t even afford to take us both to the cinema, never mind feed her for a week. I spent a lot of the night awake.

I slept through my alarm, and even for a Sunday it was quite late by the time I finally woke up. I grabbed some breakfast, making a jam sandwich for Aria when Nan wasn’t looking, and told her that I had loads of homework to do so I would be using the flat downstairs.

The door was unlocked so I let myself in, calling Aria’s
name softly. There was no answer. Peeking into the bedroom I could see that the bed had been carefully made. In the kitchen all the cupboard doors were open and a selection of tins were lined up on the little table.

“Aria?” I called a little more loudly, beginning to panic that something might have happened to her. “Where are you?”

“In here,” said a small voice from the sitting room.

I pushed open the door and saw Aria sitting on the floor surrounded by a huge pile of books. Marjorie’s bookcase had been completely emptied. Along with the discarded paperback romances there was a large selection of coffee-table books full of glossy photos, and they were scattered around her, pages open at a random selection of things. There were also stacks of magazines – some thick monthly ones and loads of weekly gossip ones. I hadn’t realised that Marjorie liked that sort of thing.

Aria had clearly been working her way through them all for hours, and my heart sank at the thought of trying to get them back into place and make it look as if we’d never been here.

“I brought you breakfast,” I said, pulling the slightly fluffy jam sandwich out from my hoodie pocket and handing it to her. She almost pounced on it, looking inside quickly before smiling and biting into it. “Sorry it’s a bit late,” I added. “I overslept. You should keep that door locked, you know. It’s not safe to leave it open.”

“Oh, OK.” She was quiet for a moment, eyes closed as she ate. “Thank you,” she said finally, wiping the crumbs from her mouth with the back of her hand. The sandwich had pretty much already gone. “That was good. I’ve been up so long I’ve already had my nap.”

“What have you been doing?”

She beamed at me, picking up a copy of
Hello!

“I’ve been busy looking at all these. I have so many questions!”

I laughed. “You have pictures here of all the wonders of the world but you want to ask me questions about celebrities. I like your priorities!”

We giggled over the magazines for the next hour or so, and Aria learned to recognise some of the names. It was a much easier way to learn to read than with the kids’ books. She was particularly fascinated by the celebrities who were splitting up.

“I don’t understand how it works. You say that no one tells you who to choose, but they’re still miserable. Why aren’t they happy?”

“Who knows?” I said. “Some partnerships – marriages – work, and others fall apart. Everyone hopes that theirs will be one of the happy ones, but loads of them fail.”

“There’s a lot of hurt in this world too,” said Aria, looking at a picture of a young woman carrying a baby and trying to avoid the cameras.

I thought of my parents and the fights that they had, and I could only nod in agreement, blinking hard. To
distract us both I turned the pages of the magazine to find some pictures of boys.

“OK – of these two, which do you think is better looking?”

She blushed scarlet. “I couldn’t say that! It’s not proper.”

“Who’s going to tell? Go on – this one or the other one?”

“Do you mean the one with the yellow hair? We don’t have anyone with that. He looks a little like your friend Will.” She paused, holding up the picture. “I like him.”

“Oh. I guess. Maybe he looks like him a little bit.” Something in me really didn’t appreciate the thought of Aria liking Will, not the way I thought she meant, anyway.

“Does everyone in the Community have dark hair then?” I asked.

“Yes, everyone. Some go grey, of course, but the rest of us have brown or black hair. The people here with yellow hair are just … beautiful. Don’t you think so too?”

“We call it blonde,” I said, dodging her question.

“Blonde. I like that word.” She rested her chin in her hand and stared off into the distance, a small smile on her face. I wished I knew what she was thinking.

If he was my breeding partner I wonder what our children would look like. Would they have yellow hair too? I try and imagine a little girl with my face and Will’s thick yellow hair. It’s a lovely thought, but hopelessly impractical. No,
I mustn’t think about it – I must concentrate on what I’m going to do next.

My mission is finished. I can’t do what I was supposed to do, to take Lily back below, so I must decide – risk going home or start a new life up here. And as I think it, I know that there is no choice.

I take a deep breath and look up. “I have to stay here now. I don’t know how I’m going to manage but I’m going to have to try.”

“Forever?” Lily’s voice sounds squeaky.

“Yes, forever. I have to leave everything. Everyone. All of my old life.” I pause and think into the future. “Maybe there is someone I can share a life with here.”

I glance over at Lily’s shocked face. She has been so kind, and the guilt threatens to overwhelm me again. Am I being a coward for not warning her about the Farmer’s plans?

I could see the guilty look in Aria’s eyes before she quickly turned and started tidying a pile of magazines, and my heart sank. She fancied Will, it was pretty obvious, but did she really think that she could start a new life with him? I couldn’t see how that was ever going to work, even if he wanted to.

And I wasn’t sure how I could help either, not in any practical way. It was all such a mess.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do if you stay,” I said.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean, you won’t be able to stay here – in this flat – forever. And somehow we have to be able to feed you. I can’t do that alone. We need help.”

“But why can’t I live here?”

“Because it’s not our flat. It won’t work.” I wished that it had been a year ago, when my life was so different. I’d have had no problem finding the money to look after her then. I tried to imagine how I would have managed if I’d been left here all alone without Nan, and shuddered. However brave she seemed, Aria must be terribly homesick. I felt the familiar prickling in my eyes as I thought about my mum.

I reached out to take Aria’s hand, probably more for my comfort than hers.

“It’ll be OK, I promise you. We’ll think of something. I will find a way to help. That’s what friends are for, right?”

I almost smiled as I thought back to Jenny’s nasty text comment, which had pushed me into inviting Aria home, and realised that I had barely looked at my phone since I’d met her. Jenny was right – I’d needed a friend, and now I had one.

There was obviously still plenty of stuff that Aria wasn’t telling me, but I decided not to push it. I didn’t understand her world or her rules. I just wished that I hadn’t introduced her to Will, because there was absolutely no way I could compete with her looks.

I decided there was no point worrying immediately,
and we continued poring over the magazines for what remained of the morning. After a tiny lunch I had to do my homework. Aria sat quietly on the sofa leafing through more books, and every time I glanced up she seemed completely absorbed. She was following the text with her finger and mouthing letters, occasionally raising her eyebrows as she turned a page. She kept quiet though, and finally my end-of-term English essay was done. I threw my pen down on the table and shut my books. It was time to show Aria a bit more of the city.

“We’re going window shopping,” I announced, standing up and stretching. “Come on, leave that. We’ll clear up later.”

Aria looked confused. “Shopping for windows?” she asked.

“Not literally. We’re just going to have a look at stuff. Let’s go back to Selfridges – the place where it smelled of perfume, remember? We can go in the back door where the smell won’t be so strong.”

“All right,” she said slowly. “But if it makes me sneeze again I’ll have to leave.”

Within twenty minutes we were at the back entrance to the store. Aria followed me in, sniffing the air.

“It’s not too bad back here,” she agreed. “What did you want to do?”

We rode up and down the escalators for a while, Aria’s eyes getting wider and wider, “It’s all so beautiful,” she said, stroking a silk dress in the Prada concession. “This
is so soft, but it would be hopeless to wear.”

I could see the assistant eyeing us up and getting ready to come over to shoo us out of the way.

“Come on, you’ll enjoy this – the easy way to travel!” I took her hand and pulled her towards the back of the store to the bank of lifts.

We stood waiting for the lift to come but as soon as the metal doors slid open Aria jumped backwards, her mouth open in horror, in the process nearly knocking over a woman with a toddler. I mumbled an apology to the angry mother and helped to pick up her bags while Aria was pressed up against the far wall, just staring at the lift. Finally the doors closed and we were alone on the landing.

“What’s the matter? You can’t possibly be claustrophobic. What is it about lifts that you don’t like?”

“Can I tell you about it outside, please?” she asked. “I don’t want to be near these things.” She shuddered as another of the lifts arrived with a loud ding, its doors gaping open.

“OK, if you insist. Come on, I know what will cheer you up.”

We left the store and started to make our way down past Oxford Circus to Regent Street, and Aria started to relax a little, despite the crowds of tourists. “Lifts then,” I said. “Why are they such a problem? They can’t do you any harm.”

“Are you sure? We have one, and unless you have the
right protection, if you go up in the lift you’ll never come back. No one in the Community would risk using one.”

“Really? Let me guess – the Farmer is the one who gives you the protection?” I tried hard to keep the sarcastic tone out of my voice.

“That’s right! How did you know? It’s certain death to use the lift in secret.”

“Oh, lucky guess. Your Farmer seems to control most things. Do you have many lifts?”

“No, just the one that is used to get the food down to us. The Listeners organise that, and they have to go up and down in it. The Farmer makes sure they are safe, but Dane says it’s very scary. I don’t know how he does it.” There was a touch of awe in her voice.

“It’s a good job you’re not going to get to be a Listener then,” I laughed, trying to get her to join in, but the best she managed was a watery smile.

Lily is trying to get me to understand the way that the Aboves live, but it’s so hard. There are so many times when I think things are under control but then something horrible appears. How can she joke about lifts? She’s right though; it’s one of the few things that would put me off being a Listener.

Lily is dragging me along a wide road that has lots of the big red buses on it. There are huge windows too, showing lots of strange things. Some of them seem pretty straightforward, with jumpers or plates in the
windows, useful stuff like that, but others I can make no sense of. One building just has a picture of an apple outside. Inside dozens of people seem to be crammed around white tables, looking at small flat things.