Shades of Grey (18 page)

“I would sooner stick needles in my eyes. And why are you holding on to your eyebrows?”

“No reason. Anyhow, I can’t go home—deMauve’s got my return ticket.”

“You gave it up?” she said with incredulity. “I was wrong—you’re not as stupid as you look.”

“Thank you.”

“It wasn’t a compliment. You’re far, far stupider.”

“Please,” I said, “keep on insulting me—I hope to develop an immunity. What have you got against the Order, anyway? In five generations your family might be prefects. Will they be complaining about the Order then?”

The directness of my question caught her off guard, but she soon recovered.

“Probably not, but I should hope the Greys under them will—and that my ancestors will have the wisdom to listen.”

“The sheep needs the shepherd, and the shepherd needs the sheep,” I replied, slipping into the Word of Munsell almost without thinking. “Apart We Are Together. There has to be some kind of hierarchy. The Purples aren’t lofty and superior because they’re Purple; it’s because they’re in power. You think Greys would be any different if the roles were reversed?”

“I don’t want Greys in power any more than I want the Yellows. I just think that everyone should be equal. Equal merits, equal Rules, equal standing within the village. Purple head prefect one year, Grey head prefect the next—or even no head prefect at all.”

“Equality is a proven myth,” I remarked, the well-worn arguments tripping off my tongue. “Do you favor a return to the ways of the Previous with their destructive myopia and Worship of the Me? Or simply a descent into the anarchic savagery of the Riffraff?”

“Despite what you read in
Munsell
, those aren’t the only choices. We deserve better that this.
All of us.
We could run the village like we run the Greyzone. No spots, no rankings, just people. Why do I have to prove myself an upright member of society and deserving of full residency before being allowed to marry? Why do I have to apply for an egg chit? Why can’t I move to Cobalt if I wish? Why do I have to submit myself to any of the Rules?”

“Because
Something Happened
.”

“What?”

There was no clear or easy answer to this.

“Something . . . best forgotten. You may hate living under Munsell, but it has sustained for almost five centuries. Besides, your wholly demeritable thoughts and conduct place you firmly in the minority.”

She leaned closer.

“You say that, but am I
really
in the minority?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but couldn’t. Since visiting the library I had pondered upon the usually unassailable wisdom of the Leapbacks. What was in
The Little Engine That Could
that might cause a damaging rift in society? What was so wrong with the telephone that it had to be withdrawn? Why was Mr. Simply Red no longer listened to? Why no more crinkle-cut chips, bicycles, kites, zips, yo-yos, banjos and marzipan? But I had paused, and that was enough for her.

“I don’t need you to agree with me,” she said quietly. “I’ll go away happy with a little bit of doubt. Doubt is good. It’s an emotion we can build on. Perhaps if we feed it with curiosity it will blossom into something useful, like suspicion—and action.”

She stared at me for a moment.

“But that’s not really your thing, is it?”

And she left me alone in the kitchen with my thoughts. They were confused mostly, but I was at least glad my long-held doubts finally had a use—it made Jane happy.

I
followed the rays of the setting sun out of the village along West Street, and sat on a bench to draft my telegram to Constance. Neither the nonadventure with the Last Rabbit nor the Oz Memorial nor the disgraced Yellow postman would actually impress, and mentioning Jane’s odd view of the Collective would be anathema. Constance had confided before I left that the things she looked for most in a husband were “incurious unambition” and “an ability to follow orders,” so I composed the telegram along the lines of how much I wanted to discharge my Civil Obligation to the Collective in the most productive manner, and how I thought of her all the time. I tried a poem:

It wasn’t working. I was going to have to outsource my romantic thoughts to someone who could actually write poetry. I put my notebook away and gazed at the sun, which had just begun to dip below the Western Hills. The light was dropping fast, and the slopes were now black and shapeless in the lee of the daylight. It was the start of the gloaming, the transitional period between seen and unseen.

It was about the time, in fact, that the janitor would strike the arc. As if on cue, there was a bright flicker from behind me as the streetlamp burst into life, bathing the center of the town in strong artificial light. It was not just a way of extending the day but also a signal that any residents still out and about should think about returning. I could see the roof mirrors of the village swing around to pick up the light so that the beam splitters, Luxfer prisms and intensifiers that brought interior light during the day could service the village at night.

When I was a kid, we used to play dusk running, where the last one back to the safety of the streetlight was the winner. It was usually either Richard or Lizzie, but one evening it was decided that a champion dusk runner must be established, so they both went and stood in the center of the playing field and waited for the night to roll in. The rest of us stood expectantly in the town square, exchanging wagers and giggling. The first to funk out was the loser, the last one back the winner. Lizzie was first in, but Richard wasn’t the winner. He was found eight months later a mile beyond the Outer Markers by Greys on coppicing duty. He was identified only by his spoon; his postcode was reallocated a day later. No one tried dusk running after that.

Within a few minutes the river, stockwall and linoleum factory had all vanished, swallowed up in the rolling wall of darkness that was sweeping across the land. I abandoned my seat when the shadows became empty holes in my vision and retreated to the safety of the town square. The streetlamp was now burning brightly, the low hiss of the arc and the occasional squeak and flicker working to dispel the fear of the night. Behind me, only the crackletrap atop the flak tower could still be seen, and that only as a silhouette against the rapidly darkening sky.

“Hello!” said Tommo as he walked up. “I’ve been looking for you.”

I returned his salutation and thanked him for fixing up the Rusty Hill gig.

“Not a problem. Did you double-order the Lincoln for us, by the way?”

“A bit of a snag, I’m afraid.”

“Don’t be afraid,” said Tommo, “or at least, not of
me
. Courtland once beat Jim-Bob so hard he had blood in his wee.”

“I’ll get the Lincoln for you somehow.”

“I know you will. More important, are you going to marry my sister?”

I would have to get used to how quickly Tommo could change the subject.

“I didn’t even know you
had
a sister.”

“A state of affairs I am at efforts to maintain.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“It’s pretty simple. You’re a Red of moderate perception and the son of a swatchman. The fine, upstanding Red womenfolk of this cesspool will be fighting over your plums like dogs about a freshly dead carcass.”

“Graphically put, if also a little disgusting. But I’m sorry, I’m on a half promise to an Oxblood.”

Tommo raised his eyebrows. Not much impressed him, but this did. I explained about how my potential union to the Oxblood family would be my ticket to the easy life. We would be jointly running the family stringworks come Josiah Oxblood’s retirement, and it was well known that the Oxbloods were pretty much rolling in moolah.

“They have three permanent servants and a Leapback-compliant gyrocar,” I boasted, “and eat colorized food as a matter of course.”

“They’re also
notoriously
Redcentric,” he murmured.

This was true, too. Countless generations of Oxbloods had been choosing their mates wisely, and it was rumored that, paired with a suitably high-Redceptor husband, Constance might produce offspring who would surpass the Redness of the Crimsons, and topple them from the Red prefecture.

“Are you anywhere near the front of the queue,” asked Tommo, “or just a sad wannabe? Put it this way: Do you have pet names for each other?”

“We’ve shortlisted a few possibilities, but nothing’s fixed.”

Constance’s opinions on the matter, sadly, were entirely conservative. She had thought my suggestion of “snootchy bear” as an endearment a tad risqué, was tempted with a more traditional “dear” or “honey” and had conceded to a tentative “honey bear” as a compromise, but only in private.

“The union is not
quite
as inevitable as I make out,” I confessed. “Standing between me and a supremely rosy future is a po-faced slack-jaw named Roger Maroon.”

“A Maroon?” said Tommo. “I’d duck out now while you still have your dignity.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” I said quickly. “She’s quite affable in spite of her choosy Redcentric fickleness, and our courting has not been without a few moments. She has allowed me on several occasions to take her to a tea dance.”

“How scandalously forward of you. Have you tangoed?”

“Not
yet
,” I said slowly, “but we’re almost there.”

Actually, Constance had refused me a tango on the grounds that it was a “gateway dance” to something bolder, such as a lambada. If we’d done that, Old Man Magenta would have
insisted
we marry in order not to further offend public decency.

“Sadly,” I continued, “she’s also danced with Roger.”

“Looks like she’s hedging her ballroom bets as wisely as her bedroom ones.”

“I suppose so.”

“It’s all academic anyway,” said Tommo with a laugh. “Once you get to know the fillies in this village, all notions of running the family stringworks will vanish like thistledown in a nor’easter.”

“I’m not staying, Tommo.”

“Well, let’s just
pretend
you decide to take up residence. C’mon, Eddie, run with me on this one.”

“Okay,” I said with a sigh. “Let’s hear it.”

“Excellent!” he cried, clapping his hands together. “Here’s how I see your wedding prospects in this glorious sinkhole of ours: Since you look like too bright a fellow to dilute your color with anything other than the good old House of R., your choices among the Red crumpet in the village are, to say the least, limited. Once you subtract all the Greys, men and other hues from the three thousand or so people living here, there are one hundred and twenty-five potential Red womenfolk. You do the sums. Thirty-nine are already married, fourteen are widowed and nineteen have partners off at Reboot. Seventeen are spinsters over the age of fifty, and twenty-eight are under sixteen. How many left?”

“Nine.”

“Right. Up for their Ishihara this year and thus available for nuptials are my sister Francesca, Daisy Crimson, Lisa Scarlet and Lucy Ochre. If those don’t suit, Rose Madder, Cassie Flamingo and Jennifer Cochineal will be up for their Ishihara
next
year. If you feel like putting a spinster out of her misery, still on the prowl are Tabitha Auburn and Simone Russo.”

“Hmm,” I mused, half in jest, “no Blues you can think of for me to start a Purple dynasty with?”

He shook his head.

“DeMauve and the Council would never allow it. But if you’re
considering
abandoning your birth hue, Violet deMauve is still available. She’s in need of some Red seed to bring the deMauves back to mid-Purple rather than the Bluey-Red they are at present. But you’d have to be so utterly,
utterly
desperate for social advancement you’d be willing to ignore the fact that she’s the most poisonous female in the village.”

“I thought you said that accolade belonged to Bunty McMustard?”

“I think they’re on some sort of rotation. In any event, I decided in your best interests to leave Violet deMauve out of the equation. Unless, of course, you want to spend the rest of your life being told what to do and when to do it?”

I thought about Constance. There was, I had to admit, something of a similarity. “In your own stupid pretend world, no, I wouldn’t fancy that.”

“I agree. You’d have to be insane to marry into the nest of vipers. The only other girl off-limits is Lucy Ochre. She’s reserved.”

“Reserved?”

“For me. So paws off.”

“Does she know this?”

Tommo shrugged. “Not really.”

“Eight is still a pretty good choice.”