Shades of Grey (11 page)

DeMauve took it without a word and placed it in his pocket.

And at that precise moment, my father came back in the front door, and we all stood. He seemed to be having some sort of argument with Mrs. Gamboge.

“. . . and
I
say it is malingering,” she announced. “Anyone who thinks otherwise is obviously not fully acquainted with the Greys’ ceaseless capacity for distortion and untruths.”

“You are mistaken,” my father replied, maintaining an unraised voice as decorum required. “I contend that it
is
the sniffles and, as such, Annex III—legitimate work absence.”

“A spate of industrial accidents has left us severely lean on the workforce,” she retorted, mostly for deMauve’s benefit, “and none of the younger Achromatics are even
approaching
their sixteenth. A violent outbreak of the sniffles could spell economic disaster for the village.”

“It could spell more than that,” replied Dad, this time more firmly. “The sniffles has been known to progress to Variant-P Mildew, and if unchecked, an outbreak could spread far and wide.”

He wasn’t overcooking the goose. Green Sector South had lost every single resident to the Mildew in an incident many years ago and was only now getting back up to sector strength. Whether it was the sniffles or not was anyone’s guess, but outbreaks of the Mildew usually had an annoyingly banal beginning.

Luckily, Dad had the protocol of introductions to take him away from the argument.

“Apologies for my absence,” he said as he strode up, hand outstretched. “Senior Monitor Holden Russett, holiday relief swatchman.”

“George Stanton deMauve, head prefect.”

DeMauve then went on to introduce the prefects to my father, who bowed and shook hands with Turquoise and Yewberry in turn, then asked me to fetch some fresh tea for him and Mrs. Gamboge. I relayed the message to Jane, who put the kettle back on the gas without comment.

“Did you see any sign of Riffraff on the journey in?” I heard Mr. Turquoise ask as I walked back in.

“None at all. Do you have them this far west?”

“One can never be too careful. Two years ago some rail passengers were subjected to an intolerable barrage of jeers and obscene gestures about twenty miles up the line. A posse from Bluetown found an encampment a month later, but happily, they had by then all succumbed to the Rot. Riffraff in these parts seem particularly susceptible to Mildew. I think it’s the damp.”

“To be honest,” remarked Sally Gamboge, “it’s the best thing for them.”

“We have some monochrome fundamentalists down our way,” said Dad, “attacking color feedpipes, that sort of thing. But they haven’t been active for a while.”

“Killjoys,” murmured Yewberry.

“Frightful business,” remarked my father, “Ochre’s fatal self-misdiagnosis.”

“It was indeed,” replied deMauve in a sober tone. “The loss of a swatchman is always regretful, and misdiagnosis is a tragic waste. But it might have been for the best.”

The other prefects appeared uneasy, and I frowned. There was something strange going on.

“For the best?” echoed Dad. “How is that possible?”

Turquoise chose his words carefully.

“There were . . .
irregularities
regarding the village’s swatch,” replied Turquoise, referring to the large quantities of healing colors stored in the Colorium. A Chromaticologist’s Long Swatch might hold up to a thousand individual shades—well beyond the small traveling set my father carried.

Dad asked what sort of “irregularities,” but deMauve suggested only that they should “meet at the Colorium to discuss it” after tea.

“It’s a situation of the utmost delicacy,” added Mr. Turquoise.

“Did you see our crackletrap as you came in?” asked Gamboge, expertly changing the subject as deMauve helped himself to his third scone.

“One could hardly miss it,” replied my father in a distracted manner. “
Most
impressive.”

“We have a lot of lightning down this way,” she continued. “Drills are carried out regularly. You’ll find full instructions on the back of the kitchen door.”

There was a pause.

“I understand,” said deMauve, staring at my father intently, “that you were witness to an incident at the National Color outlet this morning?”

“News travels fast.”

“We were telegrammed by Vermillion’s Yellow prefect.”

Dad replied that this was indeed so, and outlined what had happened in the Paint Shop while the prefects listened intently.

“I see,” said deMauve as soon as Dad had finished. “It seems the Grey who committed the outrage of wrongspottedness succumbed to the Mildew soon after he was transferred to their Colorium. They wondered if perhaps you knew anything that could shed light on his identity.”

Jane had returned with a fresh pot of tea and extra cups, and was doing everything
extra
slowly so she could listen to the conversation.

“He was an LD2,” said Dad after thinking for a moment.

“There are eighty-two LD2s on the national register,” remarked Gamboge, “and it will take a while to trace them all. None of our twelve match the age and description. Purples are quite rightly not asked for verification, so they don’t know when he arrived, or from where.”

“Then I’m sorry I can’t help you,” replied Dad.

“No
other
clues?” asked Gamboge. “Something you might like to volunteer? Either of you?”

“No,” said my father.

I glanced at Jane, who was looking at me carefully. She knew I was aware of her connection with the wrongspot, and if she’d been anyone else, I would have told. Despite what Dad said about Russetts not snitching, I needed every merit I could lay my hands on if I was to have a chance with Constance. She liked chocolates, and they were expensive—especially ones with colorized centers. Snitching on Jane would bag me at least fifty merits.

“No, sir.”

Jane stopped straightening the tea things and quietly moved off.

“Right, then,” said deMauve. “I’ll telegram Vermillion and let them know.”

They settled down to small talk after that. Dad declined a scone but drank tea, and they talked about unicycle polo, and how the East Carmine team won silver at last year’s Jollity Fair.

Jane walked back in. She was carrying a salver with a note on it.

“Excuse me,” she said in her most polite manner, “but an urgent message has arrived for Master Edward.”

“Me?” I asked, somewhat surprised, but I took the message, thanked her and read it, then placed it in my top pocket. She curtsied and left the room without another word.

“Would you care for a scone, Master Russett?” said deMauve, since they had almost had their fill. “They’re actually very good.”

“Unusually . . .
piquant
,” said Turquoise.

“Tangy,” added Yewberry.

“You are most kind,” I replied, “but I shan’t, thank you.”

Usually, I liked scones—but I couldn’t help but refuse on this occasion. The note Jane had handed me read:
Don’t eat the scones
.

 

We signed the village register after that. Names, parents, postcode, feedback, merit tally and how much of what color we could see. Dad filled in his as “Red: 50.23%,” and I marked mine as “Untested.” I noticed that Travis had signed in just above us. He carried a highly influential TO3 4RF postcode, so originally hailed from the traditional Yellow homeland of the Honeybun Peninsula. More interestingly, he carried a 92 percent feedback score. A model resident—right up until the moment he set fire to the post.

“I’m sorry to appear untrusting,” said Mr. Yewberry once we had filled in the register, “but would you mind? It’s the Rules.”

We loosened our shirts and showed him our postcodes, and he compared them to our merit books. As a double check he also looked at the pattern of black and white lines that grew from our left-hand nail beds, and compared these to our record, which took a little longer.

We passed verification, and the prefects had a swift look at our merit status and feedback score, which they seemed to approve of, as no comment was made. My feedback was good, at almost 72 percent, but my merit score less so. Aside from my recent fine for attempting to improve queueing, I generally kept my nose clean, hence my 1,260 merits. Two hundred above the thousand required for full residency wasn’t much, but at least I was there. With it I had the right to marry once I’d taken my Ishihara, have seconds at dinner, wear a patterned waistcoat and a whole lot more besides. My father had many more merits, as befit his years, profession and senior monitor status. He would have had more still, but he had been fined a packet when he lost a swatch two years before. Dad had been down to eight thousand the last time we had discussed it, and anything beyond the three thousand earmarked for my dowry would go toward a hardwood conservatory.

“Hmm,” murmured deMauve after he had read Dad’s total. “Impressive.”

“They were my wife’s,” said Dad simply.

“Indeed?” replied deMauve, no longer so impressed. “She must have been a fine woman. We’re sorry for your loss.”

“Was it lightning?” asked Mrs. Gamboge in a hopeful sort of voice.

Dad paused, hoping that they wouldn’t press him, but these prefects were different from our bunch. Old Man Magenta might have been a fool and a martinet, but he knew when to let personal matters drop.

“Swan attack?” suggested Yewberry.

“It was the Mildew,” interjected my father in a quiet yet forceful voice, “and our grief is a private matter.”

“We apologize,” said deMauve simply. He gave us back our books and rose to his feet. “No more will or should be said.”

They made their way to the front door, where they all solemnly shook hands with my father in turn.

“It may take you a few days to understand the peculiarity of village customs,” said deMauve, “but I will start you off. Although we’re relaxed about dress code, and first names are generally acceptable, we do insist that ties will be half-Windsored, and lateness to mealtimes is not tolerated. Mandatory sports for girls are squash and hockeyball; for boys, cricket and tag-footy. Voluntary sports are tennis, extreme badminton, croquet, fainting in coils and rowing.”

“You have a broad enough river?” asked Dad, who used to scull quite a lot back home.

“It’s mostly theoretical,” replied deMauve. “And we have a ninety-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle for rainy afternoons.”

“But someone lost the picture,” grumbled Yewberry, “and there’s a lot of sky.”

“
Challenging,
we call that, Mr. Yewberry,” remarked deMauve. “Master Russett will be rostered Useful Work by Mr. Turquoise tomorrow, and I will have the junior Red monitor show him around the village. As part of this year’s Foundation Day celebrations we’ll be performing
Red Side Story.
If you want to contribute voice or instrument, my daughter Violet is holding auditions. Do you have any questions?”

“Yes,” said Dad. “What’s fainting in coils?”

“We have no idea, but the Rules state we have to offer it as a sport.” And that was it. Following the usual courteous farewells, bows, shaken hands and
Apart We Are Together
salutations, the door closed, and we were left alone in the hallway.

“Eddie?”

“Yes, Dad?”

“Keep your eyes and ears open. I’ve seen a few odd villages in my day, but nothing like this. What was all that about Jane, by the way? The Prefects actually looked frightened of her.”

“She doesn’t have anything to lose,” I replied simply. “She’s up for Reboot on Monday.”

“Ah,” said Dad, “what a waste of a good nose.”

The front doorbell rang. Dad opened it to find a junior Grey messenger, who told him that there had been another accident at the linoleum factory.

“But there’s no hurry,” said the young lad cheekily, “unless you have a swatch that can stitch heads back on.”

Dad tipped the messenger, picked up his traveling swatch case and made for the front door.

“Keep your eyes open, Eddie. Things here seem a bit rum.”

“Robin Ochre and his ‘irregularities’?”

“Among others. And one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t put so many sugar lumps out next time the Council come around.”

 

I wandered back into the kitchen, where Jane was washing the dishes, and asked her what she had put into the scones.

“You’re better off not knowing. And if you think not snitching on me is going to grant you any favors in the youknow department, you’ve got another think coming.”

“You’ve got me all wrong,” I said, trying to sound as though the notion of some illicit youknow hadn’t crossed my mind.

“Sure,” she said sarcastically, “next you’re going to tell me you’re saving yourself for your wedding night.”

“That’s . . . no bad thing,” I said slowly, and she laughed. Not with me, but
at
me. It felt humiliating. I tried to get her on the defensive by repeating the awkward question: “How did you get to Vermillion and back this morning?”

“I didn’t,” she said. “It’s not possible. And we’ve never met before, remember?”

“You don’t like me, do you?”

“That would take effort,” she replied. “Indifference is much,
much
easier. Listen, you did me a favor, and I did you a favor. So we’re quits.”

“It was hardly equal,” I replied. “I saved you a whole bunch of awkward questions, and all you did was stop me eating scones.”

“If you knew what I’d put in the scones, you might think differently.”

“What—”

“I’m done,” she said, drying her hands on the towel and getting ready to leave, “and what’s more important,
we’re
done. Speak to me again and I’ll break your arm. Make a comment about how cute and retroussé you think my nose is and I’ll kill you. Don’t think I won’t. I’ve nothing to lose.”

“But you’re the maid. What if I need extra starch on my collar or something?”