Remember Why You Fear Me (67 page)

The voices of the future are being silenced. That’s what the Prime Minister said today in a statement.

He looked duly solemn, of course, but we didn’t buy it, the public; we know that he still has a teenage son and a teenage daughter, and they’re both intact; we know, that for all his fine words of regret, he’s just relieved nothing’s happened to them.

No one took it seriously at first. It was a gag, a trick. Children in schoolrooms, playgrounds, at the dinner table, suddenly eating their own heads off. But it spread. Whatever it is, whether it’s just the latest fad, like skateboarding, or the Spice Girls, or whether it’s a genuine
plague
, that the young are being infected in some way, that there’s a head-eating virus being passed around like verucas and the common cold.

We asked the children, of course, but the children weren’t telling. The children had nothing to say to us any more.

The sensation was confined to Britain for a little while, but then outbreaks were reported all over Europe, in America, Japan. There was news footage from Africa, showing us all the starving children there, all ribs and horseflies buzzing, and we saw how had clearly got tired of bowls of rice and handouts from the UN, they were chewing through their own faces instead.

I’m still not convinced it
isn’t
a magic trick. The little girl, the one who decapitated herself in my kitchen, she told me that her brother had come back. He’d come back. Why would she lie?

I had to dispose of her body all by myself. And this time there was a
lot
of blood.

Sally stays with me every night. In fact, recently, she’s barely left my flat. Sometimes we make love, but most nights we just sit up watching movies together, most nights she sleeps on the couch. We don’t talk much. I’m annoyed by it. I didn’t want her moving in, I didn’t want a proper girlfriend, but she’s not going anywhere. Once in a while I might bring up her daughter. “Maybe Abigail isn’t dead,” I say. “Maybe you should pop around and check. She’s only six, after all.” The last time I raised the subject she stormed off and locked herself in the bathroom for three hours, I’m not sure I’ll bother again.

And no one can understand it, that’s what I keep hearing on the news, they talk of the tragedy, the
waste
, the voices of the future, blah blah blah, and on, and on. It’s inexplicable, they say. And I think, you’ve just forgotten what it’s like to be children.

Because
I
was a voice of the future once, and so were you. Look at us now. Go on. It’s hard to credit! But we were the nation’s hopes; we were presented the entire world by our parents, and told that one day it would be ours, that we would change history, that we could change everything. That that was the magic of it. But like all magic, it’s just a trick. It’s a trick. I think what’s happened is, the kids have seen through the illusion. I think, at last, they’ve opted out.

The voices of the future are silenced. But maybe they simply had nothing to say.

They tell us that the epidemic is easing off. That fewer children are eating themselves each day. That no more than fifteen per cent of the child population worldwide has been affected anyway, we mustn’t exaggerate the problem. And maybe that’s true. I see lots of kids still out there, there are tons of them. But I look in their faces and they’re so bland and puddingy, I don’t think I’m looking at the cure finders for AIDS, I doubt there’s a single prime minister amongst them.

Oh, yes, I still get bookings. By mothers and fathers who are desperate to prove that nothing is wrong, nothing has changed. Their little Jimmy or Jenny or John may not have spoken in weeks, but that’s okay, put that aside, it’s their birthday! Their birthday has rolled right round again, and there’ll be presents and cake for them, there’ll be parties. Let’s bring the magician to the party, let’s see if he can entertain the kids. And whenever I stand out front and perform, I know that the odds are at least three or four of the kids will get so bored they’ll resort to eating their heads. I try not to look, it throws me off my stride.

So the Government can feed me as many statistics as they like, the crisis is passing, yes, of course, if they say so, of course. But I know what I see, I’m there, I’m at the front line, I see what’s going on.

And I try not to look, but I still want to know how the trick is done.

And I think of what the little girl said, that her brother came back. What did she mean by that?

I’ll do the newspaper trick and the one with the eggs and I’ll get out my cards and let them dance in my hands. The children look indifferent, they never applaud, but then, I’m used to that, I never expected them to. And sometimes, I can’t help it. I’ll stop my patter, I’ll stop it dead. I’ll stop talking so I can give my bottom lip a nibble, I’ll bite right down hard and chew. And I can taste the blood in my mouth, the blood is flowing, and I think to myself, I must be doing it wrong.

I didn’t even like Mrs. Saras at the beginning, and I certainly didn’t want to have sex with her. I cannot pretend that when I met her I was in any way expert at the wiles of Brazilian women; I had been in the country only a day, and half of that had been spent jetlagged. But the representative for Mr. Saras sent to welcome me at the airport (a woman) had kissed me on both cheeks, and the personal assistant who accompanied Saras to that first lunch meeting (also a woman) had done the same. I was of half a mind to dislike the familiarity, this invasion of my body space, this pretence of intimacy, but instead I decided I would indulge it. That when in Brazil, I would do as the Brazilians did. And so when Saras invited me out for a meal that second evening, and there with such great ceremony presented me to his wife, even giving a little bow of introduction, I fancied myself going quite native; I eschewed the handshake of time-honoured tradition, instead I fairly lunged at her with my lips puckered. And she recoiled. She actually recoiled. She wrinkled up her nose as if I were a bad smell. And she shot a glance at her husband, and he gave her a nod, and I could see she was asking permission—is it quite in order I should respond to this pasty Englishman making free with my cheekbones—or, worse—do I
really
have to put up with him at all? And at his nod she sighed, she smoothed away that expression of recoil; she fixed on a mask of weary acceptance; she stuck out one cheek in my general direction. And I didn’t want to kiss it now. For God’s sake. I hadn’t wanted to kiss it in the first place.

Because, as I say, I didn’t like Mrs. Saras at first, and even the very concept of fuckery vis a vis her and me hadn’t even begun to permeate the wildest imaginings of my mind. She wasn’t pretty. Her hair was pulled back too severely, so it was tight against her skull, so it seemed like an off-blonde bruise on the skull itself. Her eyes were flat. Her breasts flat. Her nose bulbous, the nostrils seemed caught in constant flare. And she was scarred, definitely scarred; three thin scars crisscrossed her cheeks turning her face into a crude map. I wondered what Saras was doing with her—he who had Brazil in his pocket, he who could have had anyone—and yes, she was young, she was half his age, she was half my age come to that, so she might have been a
quarter
his age, I can see the appeal of youth, but couldn’t he do better, surely he could do better. And, some time later in the evening, as she leaned forward to accept a light for her cigarette, a courtesy I should add to which she showed not the slightest hint of gratitude, I could see lit up in the sudden glare a faint moustache balanced on her upper lip—faint, as I say, but furry, and masculine, and unarguably unrelentingly
there
. Over my brief association with Saras I had occasion to doubt the man and his motives—but it was then—what was he doing married to a dog like this?—then, and only then, that I truly doubted Saras’ mind too. His wife was really that plain.

I’m a man who does not spend too much time looking at women and wondering whether they would be worth having sex with—I save all fantasies of fuckery for when I’m bored. And I wasn’t bored that evening; the wine was plentiful, Saras was being witty; I was on my best behaviour. So the violence of my rejection of the wife quite surprised me, since I hadn’t even begun to contemplate sexual congress of any nature with anyone at any point—and when my brain spoke up to me I tried to shush it down, its concern was quite unnecessary—don’t fuck her, it said, a non-sequitur popping up in the middle of a conversation about royalty payments—this Mrs. Saras, the brain said quite distinctly, she is not a woman with whom you want to fuck.

Back to that first kiss. Back to where I left Mrs. Saras, with her cheek poked out so rudely toward me. And I let her wait, I did. Because I was damned if I was going to humiliate myself. I was damned if here in public, watched by the representative from the airport (pretty) and the personal assistant (prettier), gawped at by all Saras’ hangers-on and chucklehounds and suck-ups (and all of them still prettier than Mrs. Saras)—yes, I was damned to hell if I would take this surly scar-faced nostril-flared rebuff on the chin. I considered offering her a handshake after all. I nearly did it. That, I thought, would be the perfect put-down—my refusal of
her
, a demonstration that I was still the man, that I still had the real power.

But, I thought, I didn’t have any power, did I? That’s what I had to consider. (And consider quickly, because they were all still waiting, all still watching.) I had been briefed about Saras. I was warned he was temperamental, he was an
artist
, he distrusted the ways of the businessman, that he would try to play games. And as Mr. Gladwell had told me when he assigned me the contract, my task in Rio de Janeiro was very simple—get Saras to sign his work to us, do what he asks, keep to the budget agreed, but anything beyond that, anything that might make him happy, that is up for grabs. I had to consider whether a public slight against his wife, no matter how great the provocation, would really be in the best interests of Gladwell, Green and Grant. By now everyone was watching, even those outside our party, those on other tables; there were giggles. I’d tried to kiss her, she’d pulled away—she’d offered a kiss in return, I’d pulled away too. For that moment it still looked witty almost, almost a little dance, a tease—and I looked at Saras and I could see he was amused by it. But the window for polite amusement was closing fast, the great open plains of blunt offence were stretching out before me. So I suppressed the handshake. I swallowed my pride. I leaned forward. She leaned forward to me. We collided.

I kissed her on both cheeks. I aimed my mouth straight at those ugly scars. I kissed them very faintly, there was hardly any pressure at all, there was certainly no muscle movement. Not on my part anyway, I kept my lips quite rigid, and if there was a flexing of the cheeks on her end I wasn’t able to feel it and was besides standing too close to see. There was a smattering of applause, even, and Saras looked delighted by the fun. Mrs. Saras didn’t. And her cheeks had felt a little like paper, like tissue paper, something that might tear.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I said then, “and a great honour to be in your beautiful country.”

“Don’t bother,” said Saras. “Her English is dreadful.” And more laughter from him. And from her, those flat eyes came to life just for an instant, they flashed at me, angry. And she turned from me. And I was dismissed.

I should say now. I’m not sure what this story is. I’m not sure whether this even
is
a story. Whether I understood much of what happened those few days I spent with the Sarases in Rio de Janeiro, and it’ll be up to wiser heads than mine to read this account and work out what is relevant. If there is any relevance to be found. But what it isn’t, I stress, is a confession, not of any kind; I don’t pretend that I covered myself with glory whilst in Brazil, nor that I ever had the best of intentions, but I am quite adamant that there is nothing that I did or said that made any material difference to the events at large. I must insist on that. If you are reading this narrative, you must do so on that understanding, I am offering information only, not excuses, and if you
won’t
understand that, if you refuse to take my word for it, if you refuse to accept my sincerity, then I would rather you stopped reading right now. Whatever may have been in my head, I did nothing wrong. (Save for one little thing I said, one lie, and for that alone I have some regret.) I do not know what happened to Miguel Saras. I am not responsible. I deny any responsibility. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me.