I Am Margaret (28 page)

“Well, you did just say you loved me. This is me.”

“Hah!” he sighed, and set a kiss on my palm. His cheek was rough under my fingers. We really were all grown up now. “I’ve got something for you.”

“Something better than a wordProcessor?”

“Well, I hope you might think so.” He pressed a small box into my hand.

I held it in the moonlight to open it. A ring sat inside, three tiny white stones twinkling from within the slender band.

“I know this ring,” I whispered, moving back to the hatch. “It was my Great-Grandmother’s engagement ring. They started making them very simple like this back then so no one would realize what they were, the EuroGov having it in for marriage…”

“I hope you don’t mind… I know you’re supposed to have rings, for marriage, so I went to your mum to ask her what she thought you’d like. I knew I couldn’t spend much ‘cause I need the money to rescue you—all of you, it seems—but she gave me this… Is that okay? I can find something new if you prefer…”

I found his hand and pressed it.

“It’s perfect, Bane. And no one will guess what it means, nowadays, so I can even wear it.” I handed him the box back and waggled my left hand after it. “Put it on, put it on!”

He took my hand gently.

“Which finger?”

“This one…” I folded all my other fingers down, leaving my ring finger outstretched. Bane slid it into place.

“Perfect fit …huh, didn’t even think about that.”

“Well, my mum knew it fitted. I’ve got something for you too, but I’m afraid it’s much more practical.”

I took my bank card from my pocket and passed it through to him.

“PIN number is 16 12.”

“That’s my birthday.”

“Then you’ve got no excuse to forget it, have you? There’s not exactly a huge sum in there, but it might help… Bane, did you tell my parents you plan to rescue me? ‘Cause that’s the other problem…”

“
No, it
isn’t
. They’re shutting the Mass center down. Salperton’s been hot as anything these last few weeks, pursuivants everywhere, everything’s been suspended anyway. Someone else will open a fresh one when things cool off. Father Mark agrees, says it’s suicidal to try and keep a center going forever. So they’re closing it whether or not I rescue you, okay? It’s
not
a problem.”

“All right, calm down. You know if you do rescue us, the first place they’ll check is our homes. You’ll need to warn Jon’s parents as well.”

“I will. But you know, it’s one thing having a daughter who might fail and another when she’s actually failed—your parents were going to shut it anyway, so I could come get you, even before Father Peter…” He was quiet for a moment. “Yeah, I was really sorry to hear about that. How’d you find out?”

I swallowed, my hands tightening on his.

“We… we had to watch.”

“Watch what?”

“The… execution.”

“
What?”
Bane was shocked. Truly and genuinely shocked, even after all his dabbling on the fringes of the Resistance. “No
way
.”

“Yes,” I said in a low voice.

Bane stretched through the hatch for all he was worth, but couldn’t quite reach far enough to get even one arm around me.

“Margo,” he whispered, cradling my hands instead. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Margo?”

“Really. It’s a slight work in progress, but… I’m all right.”

“Yeah. Whose idea was it, making you watch that?”

“Oh, the girls’ warden, she’s a real sick bitch, but never mind about her, Bane. Just concentrate on rescuing us.”

“All right. You concentrate on writing your masterpiece.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Damn, I want to give you a big hug.”

“I want a big hug. And I want to kiss you.”

“Not as much as I want to kiss you!”

“
Oh blast, you’d better go, you know. We’ve been talking for
ages
.”

“Yeah.”

But we just went on sitting there, holding hands.

“Bane,” I whispered at last. It felt like cutting my heart out with my tongue. “You’ve got to go. It’s too dangerous.”

“All right, all right.”

He kissed his fingertips and pressed them to my lips and I did the same. Then, after only another ten or twenty clasps and kisses of hands, he slipped back into the ditch, and that little animal began to inch its way into the distance. I sat in silence for a long time, waiting until he’d definitely have reached the forestline. Just in case I was caught.

Finally I got up and arranged the heavy reams of paper inside my jumpsuit, picked up the ‘art case’ in one hand, held the door card in the other, and took a good look around the dim little room for anything left behind. Swiping the card, I inched the door open and eyed the parking area. I was pretty much going to have to walk across. Good thing the exercise sacks were gray.

Um… I know your primary concern is my spiritual welfare, Angel Margaret,
but perhaps you could have a quick word with the guards’ angels so they don’t go looking this way?

With that, I walked straight over, not too fast, not too slow. I didn’t breathe again until the stairwell door was closed behind me. Then I waited, peeping through the window to see if any sort of chaos erupted behind me. But the search lights stayed off, and the night stillness continued unbroken. I hadn’t been seen.
Thank you, Angel Margaret.

Cautiously, I made my way back up to the dormitory level, changing swiftly in the washroom and re-belting my jumpsuit under my nightie. With my dressing gown tightly tied, I stuffed the paper inside it and returned to the dorm, case in hand.

The next morning, with no attempt at concealment, I sat down at a table near a socket, opened my ‘art box’ and plugged in the word processing thingie. I’d lain on my bunk for a while, yawning and studying the old manual tucked in the lid, and was now able to peel a wad of paper from a ream and slide it into the correct part of the machine. What I thought was the correct part of the machine...

A cursor flashed invitingly on the dimly glowing screen. I stared at it, searching for a beginning. Bane had shown me what the content was to be… No. First part ten of the Fellest Ewe’s Diary. To demonstrate the device’s benefits and keep tongues from flapping near the guards.

My fingers had barely begun to tap on the old keys when the curious began to crowd around. Jane soon forced her way to the front.

“Is that a laptop, Margo?”

“
No, course not, they’re not allowed. It’s just a wordProcessor, for printing stories on. See…” Since I had almost a page, I pressed the print button. The machine obediently sucked in a sheet of paper and began to spit it out again, text emerging line by line—
quietly,
good.

“Huh.” Jane stared curiously at the screen and the keys, and apparently concluded it was no more than I said it was. “Where’d you get it?”

“I can hardly talk about that, can I?” I said lightly.

Jane’s eyes narrowed, but her sharp tongue was oddly dulled after that, at least when she was talking to me. Not so odd really, if she thought I’d got as friendly as all that with a guard—I probably seemed her best chance of escape. From the way she was prowling and snapping these days, escape plans—or lack thereof—were on her mind. No wonder—only yesterday a special friend of Emily’s had been taken from the Old Year. Emily’d been crying as she told us.

Oh yes, I want to get out of here too. Suddenly I really, really do
...

When it was almost time for exercise, I unplugged the machine and put the case back up on my clothes’ chest.

“D’you think it’s going to do the job?” Jon asked me, as I dropped back down and sat beside him.

“
Oh yes. I really might get the book written in time, with that.” Not that I was going to need it,
surely
… Or was that
please
?

The door opened and Watkins called us out. In the passage Finchley lurked, giving me his usual look of pure loathing. Doubt it was chance that the Menace kept putting those two together at the moment. But when Finchley turned to lead the way to the passage door, a gasp rose to my lips.

His dressing had finally disappeared, revealing a pattern of healing cuts. In the shape of a… No joke, someone had carved the full works into his cheek! Finchley’s face grew brick red as a tide of whispering swept the passage.

“Look,” said Sarah curiously, pointing. “Boy bits…”

Finchley’s fist clenched and he took a step towards her. I’d sprung between them before I’d even realized what I was doing. His looming presence drove a chill splinter of fear into me.

“Don’t you dare touch her,” I hissed.

Finchley stepped back and hurried to unlock the stairwell door, almost as though afraid to speak to me! Or afraid to be
seen
speaking to me. Resolving afresh to avoid any conceivable possibility of being alone with him, I caught Jon’s arm, telling him about Finchley as we traipsed down the stairs.

I paused at the gym door, lowering my voice.

“
Watkins, what happened to Finchley’s
face
?”

Watkins tapped the side of his nose, and smiled far less pleasantly than usual.

“Looks like a little bird told the Major after all, doesn’t it? In you go…”

I went to my assigned exercise machine, but I couldn’t get the Major’s twisted justice out of my mind, though it was very hard to feel sorry for Finchley. Jon was on a cycling machine, alternating between grinning like a loon and an expression suitable for a funeral. The more primeval part of me certainly wanted to roll around on the floor pointing and laughing with an evil glee worthy of the Major himself.

But I’m not the Major
. He shouldn’t have done that to Finchley. He should’ve just sacked him.
Bwahaha
, but it serves him right…
No
. I am not the Major.

So I prayed for Finchley as I ran on the treadmill, prayed and prayed until that devilish laughter was driven from my mind.
I am not the Major
…

“When’re you going to start reading it to me?” asked Jon one night, after I’d spent two weeks typing almost nonstop.

“Soon,” I said absently, planning tomorrow’s pages in my head. That incident would follow on to that…

“So you keep saying.” For these soft, safe ear-to-ear murmurs in the dark, we spoke Latin, and he sounded aggrieved. I dragged my mind away from the growing pile of printed sheets that nestled in Jon’s clothes’ chest for greater security and gave him my attention.

“They’ll be announcing the winning story in just over a week.”

“You’re going to read me what you’ve done before then, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“You don’t sound very happy about the idea. Are you afraid it’s no good? If things go right, the whole world’s going to be reading it.”

A little ball of ice formed in my belly. The whole world.
Help me, Lord
…

I managed not to swallow—he’d hear it—and said, as though changing the subject, “You know, not being able to witness used to frustrate me so much. The silence and secrecy. My parents’ fake friends—whiter than white, EuroGov-can’t-do-anything-wrong types—y’know, like the Marsdens. Well, Mum and Dad try their best to make the friendships genuine, but… I suppose it was the same for you?”

“
Oh, yes. Witnessing—now that’s a seriously dangerous game. But people do it. But
not
people whose parents run safe houses and Mass centers. I could never admit to my faith in even the tiniest word or gesture.”

“Tell me about it—I used to think nothing could be worse…”

Jon gave a very faint snort.

“
Yeah,” but his tone was one of self-mockery, “but it’s not true, is it? Because if they actually catch you speaking about it…” He shuddered. “Well, they don’t just do you for
Personal Practice
, that’s for sure. Have to admit turning fifteen cooled my enthusiasm a bit.”

“Ugh,” I shuddered as well. “Fifteen. I remember fifteen.” Nowadays the Rite of Confirmation took place just before you turned sixteen—sixteen being the legal age for execution. Decision time, in no small way.

“
Fifteen was a horrible year,” Jon agreed. “I was really glad to have Bane as a friend that year,
because
he was a nonBeliever. That probably sounds a bit nuts.”