Unfinished Business...
I WAS flabbergasted. What the hell was she doing in this place? Me being here I could understand, but Sandra? Never.
Then it struck me. To earn an express ticket, you’d need to be a saint, and in my experience, saints were few on the ground. Even Sandra didn’t qualify. Ergo, she was traveling the same stopping-all-stations route as I was.
She was angry. Steam-from-the-ears furious, not to put too fine a point on it. When she turned to find me standing there open-mouthed, there was no “Mark, how wonderful!”, no joyful leaping into my arms. I guessed Peter had laid down his ‘no sex’ stricture, but her lack of affection had another cause.
“Angela is still alive,” she said.
Alive! But I’d thought....
I looked to Peter. Grim-faced, he nodded.
Unbelievable. Nobody could’ve survived that crash. Not unless…
“She was thrown clear,” Sandra said. “She’s wandering around in that awful scrub.”
The thought of that little mite dazed and helpless in those hostile surroundings made my blood run cold. I suddenly knew how a father felt.
“They’ll find her,” I said. “It’s not as if she could get very far.”
“No-one’s even looking!” Sandra cried. “They think she was still in the car when it blew up.” She turned to Peter. “Please, you must let me go back. Just to make sure she’s found.”
“How many times must I repeat myself?” Peter asked. “You cannot go back.”
He was angry. For two reasons, I suspected. At Sandra for her refusal to accept her new circumstances, and at himself for having told her about Angela’s predicament. Verily, Peter had put his celestial foot in it.
“So what will happen to her?” I asked.
“How do I know?” he snapped.
“Do something, for Christ’s sake.”
“I can’t. I have no control over earthly lives.”
Sandra returned to the fray. “I don’t believe you,” she yelled.
Neither did I. “Are you telling me you can’t reach down and help Angela?” I was surprised at the desperation in my voice. “At least point her in the right direction?”
Peter shrugged. “Man has free will. No-one, and I mean no-one, has the power to change that. I’m sorry.”
“Look, we’re not asking you to part the Red Sea. Just help a little girl.”
“Please,” Sandra implored, her eyes sad with tears.
Peter cast his eyes heavenwards. “Why won’t you two listen? There is no going back. Get with it.”
He marched to the clone and hit a few keys, then waited for the printer to do its thing. He returned and thrust the marching orders at Sandra. “Your job and accommodation authorities. Your reconciliation with your daughter is now up to…”
Sandra snatched the pages and threw them in his face.
“Stuff your authorities, old man,” she hissed. She was white with fury. “I just want you to know you’re a hypocritical bastard. You probably wouldn’t help your own mother.”
Courageous, I thought, but ill-considered. Peter mightn’t be in the miracle-performing business but he was potent nonetheless. If he couldn’t alter our immediate pasts, he certainly could determine our futures. Looking at him, his fury the equal of Sandra’s, my unease grew.
“Mr Mason,” he began, “I should be obliged if you would show Ms Pastor the way out, before she says something she may live to regret.”
Sandra’s hands became fists “Regret?” she yelled. “The only thing I regret is…” But before she could turn physical, I swooped up her papers, grabbed her by an arm and shoved her towards the door. Sandra may have forgotten her whiff of Hell but I hadn’t.
“Shut up!” I warned. “Shut up and move!”
I gave her no time to argue. I pushed her through the door, then dragged her past the score of new arrivals in the corridor, most of whom were too shocked to pay us any attention. I found the promised stairs and flew down, arriving at a crude lobby. Opposite the stairwell was a single turnstile gate set into a brick wall, much like you find at footy grounds. We pushed through it.
Into the most boringly repetitious street I had ever seen. With the exception of the courthouse we had just left, every building was identical to its neighbour. If you can imagine a series of four-storey cubes, each storey having two miserly windows in a crude brick complexion of muddy brown, you have a good idea of what was facing us. The streets were asphalt, just substantial enough to take the occasional cable tram that rumbled past, but the footpaths were gravel. Every hundred yards, a gas street light marked an intersection. The cross streets seemed identical to the one in which we stood, which a sign identified as North 1st Street. And gardens, trees and nature strips? Forget it.
And the citizens..! A more sombre lot you couldn’t imagine. No smiles, no polite nods, hardly any talking. What conversation there was seemed perfunctory, reluctant even, as if the exchange of words was a traffic misdemeanour. And there was not a carefree step to be seen. The pedestrians occupied two categories; those who walked more or less upright and those who stooped as if carrying the world on their shoulders. I guessed the stoopers had been here longer. Neither showed any great enthusiasm to get to where they were going.
“Oh, Christ!”
The whispered blasphemy came from Sandra but the opinion was shared.
“Is it all like this?”
I gave it some thought. “I wouldn’t think so. Pete said there are industries and agriculture, so I reckon there’ll be factories and farms, probably on the outskirts.” I pointed to a passing tram. “There’ll be cable stations for them, too, and places to generate the gas.”
“How big do you think this place is?”
“Not sure. From what I could see from the window up there, I’d guess it borders on the river for three or four clicks in both directions. If it’s just as wide, you’re looking at a square almost eight kilometres across.”
“And after that?”
“Dunno. The agriculture bit, I suppose.”
Sandra shuddered. “Sixty square kilometres of…this! Oh, Mark!”
I expected a flood of tears, but she surprised me with bravery.
“We’re stuck with it, aren’t we?”
“I’m afraid so.”
She had a brief wrestle with the turnstile, but it didn’t budge. It was just for letting people out. There was another door a few metres away, a wooden thing with no doorknob, just a keyhole. It was locked. She turned back and smiled sadly.
“Then I suppose we’d better get on with being model citizens.”
We examined her papers. She’d been allocated the same apartment building as me, and she’d been assigned to the tramways as a driver. Which, on a cable tram, was merely engaging and disengaging the cable clutch as required. Not exactly an intellectual task.
“But,” she conceded, “at least I’ll be around and about. You know I can’t stand to be cooped up.”
It was a privilege accorded me as well. At least I assumed so. I’d soon find out; my instructions were to present myself for duty at 0900. I had half an hour to get to work.
“Me too,” said Sandra. She nodded at an approaching tram, which had ‘1st Street Terminus’ showing as its destination. “That’ll take me where I have to go.” She smiled briefly. “See you tonight.” And then she swung herself on to the tram and was gone. But not before I saw her tears.
I walked to the nearest intersection and turned right. My destination was the 5th Street police station which, given the ordinal system of street names – even numbers running north and south, odd running east and west – should be two blocks away. As I hoofed it past the cloned ugliness of the apartment blocks, I wondered at Sandra’s sudden acceptance of her lot. How long could she maintain her determination to be a pillar of the society she’d just entered? Interesting question.
There was an even more interesting question for me to ponder.
Why had St. Peter lied to us?