Twenty Sixty-Four

Chapter 4

Bradley looked about the shabby little room above Mr Wentworth's shop. Beside the window the enormous bed was made up, with ragged sheets and coverless pillows. The old-fashioned clock with the digital face was buzzing away on the mantelpiece. In the corner, on the antique IKEA table, the snow globe he had bought on his last visit gleamed softly in the half-darkness.

On the floor was a battered hotel percolator and two cups, provided by Mr Wentworth. He had also got the power on, apologizing for its unreliability. Bradley filled the percolator, clicked the switch to set the water to boil. He had brought Freedom Coffee and some Aspartame tablets. The clock's dull red digital display said 17:20: it was 19:20 really. She was coming at 19:30.

Stupidity, stupidity, his heart kept saying: suicidal stupidity. Of all the crimes a Corporate employee could commit, this one was the least possible to conceal. Actually, the idea first floated into his head in the form of a vision—of the glass snow globe refracting a ray of sunlight onto the surface of the IKEA table. As he had guessed, Mr Wentworth had no problem letting out the room. He was obviously glad of the few extra bitdollars. Nor did he seem shocked or offended when it was clear Bradley wanted the room for unspecified personal use. Instead he looked into the middle distance and spoke in generalities, with a delicate air. Privacy, he said, was a very valuable thing. Everyone wanted a place to be alone occasionally. And when they had such a place, it was only common courtesy in anyone else who knew about it to keep this to themselves. He murmured about the importance of diversity in sexual matters. He even remarked, as if unrelated, about the two entries to the house, one being through the back yard, which led to an alley.

Under the window somebody was singing. Bradley peeped out, secure in the protection of the thin muslin drapes. The June sun was still high in the sky, and in the sun-hammered court below, a heavy-set woman, solid as a baobab tree, with brawny forearms and a sacking apron strapped about her middle, was stumping to and fro between a washtub and a clothes line, pegging out a series of square white things which Bradley recognized as diapers. Whenever her mouth was not corked with plastic clothes pegs she was singing in a powerful contralto:

Say you'll remember me—standing in a nice dress

Staring at the sunset, babe.

Red lips and rosy cheeks—Say you'll see me again

Even if it's just in your wildest dreams!

The tune had been haunting Youflix for weeks past. It was one of countless similar songs regurgitated for the benefit of the losers by a subsection of the Music Department. The words of these songs were composed by computer or resurrected from the past, Bradley wasn't sure which. But the woman sang so heartily as to turn the pop tune operatic. He could hear the woman singing and the scrape of her shoes on the flagstones, and the yells of seagulls, and somewhere in the far distance a faint hum of traffic, and yet the room felt silent as a church, thanks to the absence of a faceboogle.

Stupid, stupid, stupid! he thought again. There was no way they could frequent this place for more than a few weeks without being caught. But the temptation of having a hiding-place of their own, indoors and near at hand, was too great to resist. For some time after the abandoned library it had been impossible to arrange meetings. Working hours had been drastically increased in anticipation of Firing Week. It was more than a month distant, but the complex preparations it entailed were saddling everyone with extra overtime. Finally, both managed to secure a free afternoon on the same day. They had agreed to go back to the clearing in the woods. The evening beforehand they met briefly in the street. As usual, Bradley hardly looked at Marsha as they drifted towards one another in the crowd, but from a short glance he noticed she was paler than usual.