The Heart Goes Last (12 page)

Stan is trimming the hedge, making an effort to appear not only useful but also cheerful. The hedge doesn’t need trimming – it’s the first of January, it’s winter, despite the lack of snow – but he finds the activity calming for the same reasons nail biting is calming: it’s repetitive, it imitates meaningful activity, and it’s violent. The hedge trimmer emits a menacing whine, like a wasp’s nest. The sound gives him an illusion of power that dulls his sense of panic. Panic of a rat in a cage, with ample food and drink and even sex, though with no way out and the suspicion that it’s part of an experiment that is sure to be painful.

The source of his panic: Jocelyn, the walking Vise-Grip. She’s got him shackled to her ankle. He’s on her invisible leash; he’s wearing her invisible choke collar. He can’t shake free.

Deep breath, Stan, he tells himself. At least you’re still fucking alive. Or alive and fucking. He laughs inwardly. Good one, Stan.

He’s got buds in his ears, hooked up to his cell. The whining trimmer plays backup to the voice of Doris Day, whose greatest hits playlist serves as his daytime lullaby music. At first he’d had fantasies of booting Doris off a rooftop, but there isn’t a lot of musical choice – they censor anything too arousing or disruptive – and he prefers her to the medley from
Oklahoma
or Bing Crosby singing “White Christmas.”

To the bouncy swing of “Love Me or Leave Me,” he lops off a clutch of feathery cedar branches. Now that he’s used to her, it’s calming to think of Doris, ever virginal but with impressively firm bra-bolstered tits, smiling her long-ago sun-bleached smile, mixing milkshakes in her kitchen, as in the biopic of her so often shown on Consilience TV. She was the “nice” girl, back when the opposite was “naughty.” He has a childhood memory of an alcoholic uncle annoying young girls by calling them naughty for wearing short skirts. He was eleven then, beginning to notice.

Doris would never have opted for a skirt like that, unless for something sporty and asexual, such as tennis. Maybe it was a girl like Doris he’d been wishing for when he married Charmaine. Safe, simple, clean. Armoured in pure white undergarments. What a joke that’s turned out to be.

Lonely
, he hums in his head. But he won’t be allowed loneliness, not once Jocelyn gets back from her spooky daytime job. “You should put your leather thingies on,” she said to him two nights ago, in the voice she intends as enticing. “With the little screwdriver doodad. I’ll pretend you’re the plumber.” She meant what he’s wearing now: the leather work gloves, the work apron with its pockets and widgets. Kink dress-ups for men, in her view. He hadn’t put the leather thingies on, however: he does have some pride. Though, increasingly, less.

He stands on a stepladder to reach the topmost layer of hedge. If he shifts he might topple, and that could be lethal, because the hedge trimmer is ultrasharp. It could slice neatly through a neck with a lightning-swift move, as in the Japanese samurai films he and Conor used to watch when they were kids. Medieval executioners could take off a head with an axe in one clean chop, at least in history flicks. Could he ever do anything that extreme? Maybe, with the drumroll and the crowd of jeering, vegetable-hurling yokels to egg him on. He’d need leather gloves, only with gauntlets, and a leather face mask like those in horror films. Would his torso be bare? Better not: he needs to firm up, bulk out the muscles. He’s swilling too much of that paunch-building beer: tastes like piss, but anything to get drunk.

Yesterday Jocelyn poked her index finger into the jelly roll over his lowest rib. “Shed that flab!” she said. It was supposed to be teasing, but here was an unspoken
or else.
But
or else
what? Stan knows he’s on probation; but if he fails the test, whatever it is, what then?

He has more than once pictured Jocelyn’s head becoming detached from her body by means of edged tools.

Secret love,
Doris sings.
Dum de dum,
me, yearning, free
. Stan barely hears the words, he’s heard them so often. Wallpaper, with rosebuds on it. Would Doris Day’s life have been different if she’d called herself Doris Night? Would she have worn black lace, dyed her hair red, sung torch songs? What about Stan’s own life? Would he be thinner and fitter if his name were Phil, like Jocelyn’s cheating dipstick of a husband?

Or like Conor. What if he’d been named Conor?

No more
, sings Doris. Next up will be the Patti Page top ten playlist. “How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?”
Arf arf,
real dog barks. Charmaine thinks that song is cute.
Cute
is a primary category for her, like right and wrong. Crocuses: cute; thunderstorms: not cute. Eggcups in the shape of chickens: cute; Stan angry: not cute. He is not cute a lot these days.

Which would be better, the axe or the hedge trimmer? he muses. The axe, if you had the knack of the clean stroke. Otherwise, for amateurs, the trimmer. The tendons would cut like wet string; then there would be the hot blood, hitting him in the face like a water cannon. The thought of it makes him feel a little sick. This is the problem with his fantasies: they become too vivid, then veer off into snafus and fuckups, and he gets tangled up in what might go wrong. So much already has.

You could do a good job on your own neck with the trimmer; though not with the axe. Once the trimmer was turned on it would just keep going whether or not you were still conscious. Conor once told him about a guy who committed suicide in his own bed with an electric carving knife. His cheating wife was lying beside him; it was the warmth of his blood seeping into the mattress that woke her up. He’s fantasized about that too, because some days he feels so trapped, so hopeless, so dead-ended, so nutless that he’d do almost anything to get away.

But why is he being so negative?
Honey, why are you being so negative?
he hears in his head: Charmaine’s chirpy, childishly high Barbie-doll voice.
Surely your life isn’t that bad!
The implication being: with her in it.
Stuff it,
he tells the voice. The voice gives a little shocked
Oh,
then pops like a bubble.

Charmaine waits and waits. Why aren’t there magazines to read, why isn’t there TV? She’d even watch a baseball game. Plus, now she needs to go to the bathroom and there isn’t one. That’s really inconsiderate, and if she doesn’t take control of herself she’s going to get cranky. But crankiness leads to bad outcomes, if you don’t have any power to back up your crankiness. People blow you off, or else they get even crankier than you
. Smile, and the world smiles with you,
Grandma Win used to say.
Cry, and you cry alone.
She must not cry: she must act as if this is normal, and boring. Just a bureaucracy thing.

Finally a woman with a PosiPad enters, in a guard uniform but with an identity badge pinned to her breast pocket:
aurora, human resources
. Charmaine’s heart sinks.

Aurora of Human Resources smiles mirthlessly, her eyes like sleet. She has a message to deliver and she delivers it smoothly: So sorry, but Charmaine must stay in Positron Prison for another month; and, in addition to that, she’s been relieved of her duties with Medications Administration.

“But why?” says Charmaine, her voice faltering. “If there’s been any complaint filed … Which is a dumb thing to say, because the subjects of her medication administrations all flatline five minutes after the Special Procedure, that’s what people usually do when their hearts have stopped beating, so who is there still walking around on the planet who could file a complaint? Maybe some of them have returned from the afterlife and criticized the quality of her services, she jokes to herself. Suppose they did, they’d have been lying, she adds indignantly. She’s justly proud of her efforts and her talent, she does have a gift, you can see it in their eyes. She executes well, she gives good death: those entrusted to her care go out in a state of bliss and with feelings of gratitude toward her, if body language is any indication. And it is: in the hands of Max, she has honed her skills in body language.

“Oh no, no complaints,” says Aurora of Human Resources, a sliver too carelessly. Her face barely moves: she’s had work done and they went too far. She has pop eyes, and her skin is wrenched back as if a giant fist is squeezing all the hair on the back of her head. She most likely went to a session at the cosmetic school in the Positron retraining program. The surgeons are the students, so it’s only natural that they’d slip up from time to time. Though Charmaine would jump off a bridge if her face looked as malpractised as that. At the Ruby Slippers Retirement Homes and Clinics, they did way better work. They could take someone seventy, eighty, eighty-five even, and have them come out looking no older than sixty.

They’re most likely training the cosmetic surgeons because it’s going to be really in demand here pretty soon. The average age in Consilience is thirty-three, so feeling beautiful isn’t that much of a challenge for them yet, but what will happen in the Project as the years go by? Charmaine wonders. A top-heavy population of geriatrics in wheelchairs? Or will those people be released, or rather expelled – tossed out onto the street, forced to take up life in a hardscrabble outside world? No, because the contract is for life. That’s what they were all told before they signed.

But – this is a new thought for Charmaine, and it’s not a nice one – there were no guarantees about how long that life might last. Maybe after a certain age people will be sent to Medications Administration for the Procedure. Maybe I’ll end up there too, thinks Charmaine, with someone like me telling me everything will be fine, and stroking my hair and kissing my forehead and tucking me in with a needle, and I won’t be able to move or say anything because I’ll be strapped down and drugged to the eyebrows.

“If there aren’t any complaints, then why?” Charmaine says to Aurora, trying not to let her desperation show. “I’m needed in Medications, it’s a special technique, I have the experience, I’ve never had a single –”

“Well, as I’m sure you’ll agree is necessary,” Aurora cuts in, “considering the uncertainty as to your identity, your codes and cards have been deactivated. For the moment you’re in limbo, you might say. The database crosschecking is very thorough, as it has to be, since I can share with you that we’ve had a few impostors in here. Journalists.” She frowns as well as she is able to with her stretched face. “And other troublemakers. Trying to unearth – trying to
invent
bad stories about our wonderful model community.”

“Oh, that’s terrible!” says Charmaine breathily. “The way they make things up …” She wonders what the bad stories were, decides against asking.

“Yes, well,” says Aurora. “We all have to be very careful about what we say, because you never know, do you? If the person is real or not.”

“Oh, I never thought of that,” says Charmaine truthfully.

Aurora’s face relaxes a millimetre. “You’ll get new cards and codes if” – she catches herself – “
when
you’re re-verified. Until then, it’s a trust issue.”

“
Trust
issue!” says Charmaine indignantly. “There has never been
any
 …”

“This isn’t about you personally,” says Aurora. “It’s your data. I’m sure you yourself are completely trustworthy in every way. More than loyal.” Is that a little smirk? Hard to tell on such a wrenched-back face. Charmaine finds herself blushing:
loyal.
Has Max leaked something, have they been seen? At least she’s been loyal to her job.

“Now,” says Aurora, switching to efficiency mode, “I’m placing you temporarily in Laundry. Towel-Folding – there’s a shortage in that department. I’ve done towel-folding myself, it’s very soothing. Sometimes it’s wise to take a break from too much stress and responsibility, and the after-work pursuits we may” – she hesitates, searching for the word – “the pursuits we may
pursue,
to deal with that stress. Towel-folding gives time for reflection. Think of it as professional development time. Like a vacation.”

Darn it to heck, thinks Charmaine. Towel-Folding. Her status in Positron has just taken a pratfall over a cliff.

Charmaine changes out of the street clothes she put on hours ago. (Oh shoot, look at that bra, she thinks: bright pink staining under the arms from the sweater, she’ll never get it out.) There was something else. Aurora can’t smile like a normal person, but it wasn’t just the weird smile, it was the tone. Overly mollifying. How you’d talk to a child about to have a painful vaccination or a cow on the way to the abattoir. They had special ramps for those cows, to lull them into walking placidly to their doom.

In the evening, after four hours of towel-folding and the communal dinner – shepherd’s pie, spinach salad, raspberry mousse – Charmaine joins the knitting circle in the main room of the women’s wing. It’s not her usual knitting circle, not the group that knows her: those women left today and were replaced by their Alternates. Not only are these women strangers to Charmaine, they view her as a stranger too. They’re making it clear they don’t know why she’s been stuck in: they’re polite to her, but only just. Her attempts to make small talk have been cold-shouldered; it’s almost as if these women have been told some disreputable story about her.

The group is supposed to be knitting blue bears for preschoolers – some for the Positron and Consilience playgroups, the rest for export, to craft shops in faraway, more prosperous cities, maybe even in other countries, because Positron has to earn its keep. But Charmaine can’t concentrate on her teddy bear. She’s jittery, she’s getting more anxious by the minute. It’s the digital mix-up: how could it happen? The system is supposed to be bug-proof. There are IT personnel working on it right now, Aurora has told her, but meanwhile Charmaine should join some yoga groups in the gym, and stick with the daily routine, and it’s too bad but numbers are numbers, and her numbers aren’t showing her as being who she says she is. Aurora is sure it will work out soon.