Expiration Day (17 page)

At least he was talking to me again.

The downside was that I had to give out invites to all my classmates at school. I suppose some of them knew I was the vicar's daughter. After this, there was no hiding it.

Me: “D'you want to come along to a gig? My band's playing.”

Classmate: “Yeah? Where is it? The church hall?”

Me: “That's right. In the village.”

Classmate: “A gig at a church hall? At Halloween? I thought churches didn't do Halloween.”

Me: “It's not a Halloween gig. No fancy dress. It's just a gig.”

Classmate: “No fancy dress? On Halloween? Why would I do that?”

Me: “Oh, we're a pretty good band. We write some of our own stuff.”

Classmate: “What, hymns? Ha ha!”

Me: “And we do covers, too. Stones. Blondie. The Police.”

Classmate: “Well, maybe. I'll bring a friend and we'll have a laugh.”

Make me feel ten feet tall, will you? Thanks for nothing. Move on, who's going to humiliate me next?

 

 

But we were rehearsing again. The first one was a bit strained, between John and me. He wouldn't look at me. He just stood hunched over his guitar, not even looking at
Siân,
for goodness' sake. He didn't say much, either, and Siân ended up leading us.

Kieran was now definitely in. He was younger than the rest of us by a couple of years, I know, but it didn't show in his drumming, which was incredibly mature. He was so young, I wasn't even sure he knew about girls. At least, I'd not caught him
looking
at Siân or me yet. He just seemed oblivious to anything but the music, and then his stammer faded right away.

That stammer. There was something about it that bothered me. A long chain of ifs just trying to fall into place. You know, Zog. A lot of apparently unrelated facts, but I knew I wasn't looking at them right. My mind was telling me that there was something hidden, something important, and Kieran's stammer was part of the key.

Oh, well, on with the bass. I'd get the key someday, I knew. In the meantime I had a gig to practice for.

We were aiming for ten songs, we'd decided, for about a forty-minute set. Six covers and four originals.

About an hour in we came to “Coils.” It wasn't the same, I discovered. I wanted it to be like the thirty-two bars. Instead it was flat, like a picture, a sketch of something real. I wasn't playing anything different, and I couldn't spot anything different being played from the other guys. But there it was, proof of what Amanda had told me, a song that only lived when it was played live. “Coils” had been born in a school disco, had lived for thirty-two bars, and had died abruptly. The next “Coils” was ready, just waiting to be born. Probably it would be a lot like its sister. Hopefully it would live a bit longer before dying. Burn a little brighter.

“Tell Me” followed, and that was different again. We'd never played that live, so there was nothing to compare it against. We were still messing around, designing, creating, what you will.

John was just letting us get on with it, and Siân was calling the tunes. So I tried a few experiments. I snuck in a little run at the end of the first verse. No reaction. Anyway, it seemed to work. Maybe try something similar at the end of the bridge? I went for it, but as my fingers started, I suddenly realized there was nowhere for them to go. They were heading for the nut, and there wasn't another string for them to bounce across to.

Darn!

I skipped up an octave to finish the run, but it wasn't right, even leaving aside my scrabbled fingering. The run was just crying out for a bottom D. Not the octave above.

Hmm.

We got to the end of the song. I waited for the blast from John. Nothing. Was he dead?

Siân thought we'd done all right, though.

“Nice groove, Kieran. You and Tania are working really well together. Feels really solid. John, that was neat guitar. Tania, liked your new runs, just not quite there yet at the end. Keep working on it, though.…”

Okay. So I wasn't completely off beam. Just …

I was going to need a new bass guitar. A five-string like Amanda's. Or maybe a six-string. I'd heard there were such things, though how I'd afford one, I had no idea. Or find one, either. There used to be a huge industry, according to the TeraNet, turning out hundreds of thousands of guitars, with the giants like Fender and Gibson mass-producing classics designs, and the small one-man bands turning out five or ten handcrafted masterpieces, costing thousands of pounds. I didn't know what that was in modern Basics, but I guessed I wouldn't earn that kind of money working Saturdays in a shop.

Did I dare ask Mum and Dad?

Meanwhile, John was starting to strum. Next song. “Juliette in Roses”—a new one by John. My cue was a long, wailing, bendy note. Wait for it …

There
.

Friday, October 25, 2052

Mrs. Hanson, the geography teacher. She of the photographs of African children and of the mysterious Zulu warrior.

She's not well. She's been off school for some weeks now, but this morning she was back.

She's lost a lot of weight. Her cheeks are really sunken in, and she's pale. Her hair's gone, and everyone's saying it's the cancer drugs. Cancer, Mister Zog, is a disease humans get when the cells go a bit crazy. It kills people, lots of people. Our doctors can cure it, sometimes. Sometimes not.

Mrs. Hanson is speaking to us.…

“I'm here to say good-bye, children. I should say, young ladies, for you're growing up. I've got to know you quite well over the years, and I'm going to miss you very much. Some of you, I think, have the potential to go on to do great things, and I wish I could stay and watch that happen. But as you have surely guessed, I have a cancer, and I don't have very long to live.”

Some of you, she says. That's Siân and Jemima, the only humans in the school. The rest of us get recycled in less than five years. Does she realize that?

“So I'm going back to Africa, dears. To be with my husband. Some of you will be surprised to hear that, but that's his photograph at the back. We shared a dream, but chose different ways of following that dream, so we parted, with sadness on both sides. Now my task is done; there will be some short, sweet moments together before the end.”

I look around. The faces about me look baffled, and I guess mine must look the same. Task? Following a dream?

I try to imagine Mum and Dad believing in something so much that they'd live their lives apart to follow that dream. No way.

I hear a sniff, a sob, quickly stifled. Siân, I suppose. Surely not Jemima.

“Africa, Mrs. Hanson?” someone asks. “Isn't that dangerous?”

“Life is dangerous, girls, but most of all for those who fear to lose it.”

There is silence, and I keep thinking Mrs. Hanson is going to say more, but she doesn't.

Time passes and we begin to fidget, and Mrs. Hanson tells us to read our textbooks and revise. After a while, she gets up and walks around the desks, looking over each shoulder. My book, and I suppose the books of many in the class, is open at the short chapter on Africa. Just a few paragraphs on the diamond industry in and around the Kimberley Corridor, plus some century-old black-and-white photographs of tribal life. Mrs. Hanson passes behind me.

“I'd like a short word with you after class, if you don't mind,” she whispers.

Why?

I nod, but say nothing. I don't trust my voice not to wobble.

Time passes, but I'm no wiser.

The bell rings, and we gather our books to go. I try to catch Mrs. Hanson's eye, and she nods her head slightly. Yes, I do want you to stay.

When it is quiet, and just the two of us remain, she speaks.

“Tania Deeley, we've hardly spoken in the years you've been at this school, yet I've watched you, and some of my colleagues have spoken about you to me. I spoke of those who had potential, and might go on to great things. I still wonder what's going on in your head, and what potential lies there.…”

“What potential can any of us have, Mrs. Hanson? What future is there for any of us, human or robot? Five years—isn't that all most of us have left?”

She nods, and continues.

“Yes, I heard you'd spoken to Miss James. She said you wanted to study psychology at Cambridge.”

“That's not going to happen, is it?”

“No. I think that particular door is closed to you.”

“Mrs. Hanson. In five years' time, all doors are going to be closed to me. I'm going to be dead.”

“Only humans can die. Surely robots are simply machines—how can a machine die?”

“That's a cruel thing to say.”

“The universe is cruel. I'm about to die—do you think the universe cares what I feel?”

“No. I don't suppose it does.”

“But while we live, we have a duty to make the universe a better place. Just one word of advice, and then I must release you to go off to your next class. The more choices, the better. Life always looks for another choice. Death tries to fool you that there are fewer choices, to cheat you. While you live, choose, and by your choices, make the universe richer.”

She pats my hand, gently. I am dismissed.

 

 

I don't suppose I'll ever see Mrs. Hanson again. This morning someone said she had already gone to Africa.

Sunday, October 27, 2052

I went to see Mum in hospital. She's had a little operation, to put in a tube—a Hickman line they called it—which they'll use to give her the serum. She was hooked up to a drip when I went to see her.

I couldn't help it—my eyes kept following the line to where it disappeared under a gauze square and into her body.

She saw my eyes flicker, of course.

“Yes, it's odd. I don't feel it's ‘me.' Not yet, anyway. Maybe one day it will feel more natural, but rather I hope it's gone before too long.”

“They'll take it out, then?”

“Oh, yes. I hope it will have done its job soon. Three months, six months, something like that. They'll just pull it out, they say.”

“That sounds rather alarming.”

“Doesn't it, just? They've assured me it won't come out without a rather good heave, which may or may not be a good thing. I have a vision of the consultant with his foot on my breast, hauling up a particularly recalcitrant weed.”

“Mum!” I was shocked that she could joke, I guess.

“Darling, it'll be fine. There'll be a little scar, they say, just above my breast. I've not decided whether I'll keep my low-cut tops, that your father so likes me to wear. I hope I still have the courage to.”

“I hope so, too, Mum.”

“Well, is he here, then? Mike. Dad.”

“He's waiting outside. He said we might want a bit of time for girl talk.”

“Sometimes your dad has extraordinary common sense. I think I must have met him on one of his good days. So how's John?”

That was it. Straight into girl talk.

Yes, John was all right. But he really wasn't firing on all cylinders, still. Siân was driving the band, right now, and John was just coasting. He was still a brilliant guitarist, but he wasn't
creating
.

“Why, Tania? What's changed? Is it something between you that's different?”

“I don't think so.”

“Your trip to Wood Green. Did anything happen then that you haven't told us about? Anything you or he might feel guilty about?”

“No, Mum! Nothing happened.”

“Hmm. If I know my little Tania, I bet something nearly happened, though. Am I right?”

I couldn't meet her eye.

“This is girl talk, Tania. Under the rose.”

“Yes, Mum. But there was an interruption.”

“And if there hadn't been?”

“I don't know, Mum. I think one of us would have stopped before anything got out of hand.”

“Think? That's dangerous, when each of you thinks the other will stop. Neither of you actually does. But, be that as it may. Something happened between you, or near enough, that I'm not surprised John feels guilty.”

“So what do I do?”

“I don't know, dear. Play the gig, though. It's Thursday night, isn't it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, play it. No matter what. Make it your best, and maybe he'll snap out of it.”

“Okay. I'll see you the next day, and tell you all about it.”

“I look forward to it. Oh, my word, is that the time? You'd better call your father in, before he wears a hole in the carpet out there.”

Monday, October 28, 2052

I spent the next day calling in every favor I could to drum up support for the gig. To be fair, that wasn't that many, but Siân was doing her bit, too, and having rather more success. It wasn't just boys, either, though Siân is naturally very good in the boy-recruitment department. Around school she was great, too, getting the girls along, at least from the lower years.

I'd sent an e-mail to Amanda—she'd given me her PTI after another gig. Did I mention we'd seen a couple more of her gigs since then, at the same café? And I'd struck up a bit of a friendship with her, and told her about our first gig, and that magic thirty-two bars, and she'd not said much, but she'd nodded and smiled, and I knew she'd been there, too. It was a bond. So perhaps she'd come.

And Dad had read out notices in church, inviting everyone to bring along their “young people” for an evening of wholesome music. Well maybe, but “Coils” isn't all sweetness and light.… It's just not about vampires and witches and stuff. Boy, Mister Zog, if you want to learn about how strange we earthlings are, I should write you an essay on Halloween.

Thursday, October 31, 2052

I hate sound checks, I've decided. John and Kieran were late, because it was midweek and they had school. I did my best to set up the kit, but I'm no drummer, and Kieran was nice about what I'd done, but I think he near enough completely rebuilt the kit when my back was turned.