The Glimpse (40 page)

Jasper clipped the star around Ana’s neck. The registrar snatched Ana’s hand and began squeezing on her joining ring. Ana looked into Jasper’s eyes. Beneath the turmoil and confusion fluttered the deeply buried shadow of truth, wrestling to get out.

‘There’s an inscription,’ he said. She turned the star over.

Engraved on the back was written:

Beauty is truth, truth beauty.

The smooth wood grew slick between her fingers. Ana recognised the quote. She’d studied Keats at school.

The registrar grunted. With one last twist the ring was on.

‘I have the pleasure of pronouncing you joined,’ she said.

A flash of light puled Ana’s attention up to the galery.

Distinct blue eyes aimed down on her. Galvanised by a gaze that pressed into her being, her heart sparked to life.

Cole’s solemn look absorbed her. But before a thought shot through her joy, he was turning, he was leaving, he had gone.

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31

‘Second Sight’

Ana yanked up the fish-like tail of her dress and flew down the aisle. Outside, a searing white sky blinded her.

She raised an arm to shadow her eyes, whipping around franticaly. The Community looked deserted; the streets and houses lifeless. A damp skin of sweat grew across her neck, her chest, her cheeks. She could feel it tingling, itching its way into her body.

‘Cole!’ she shouted.

She ran towards the street. Then jerked back to take in She ran towards the street. Then jerked back to take in the Community Hal. Perhaps he was stil inside. He would have to come down the galery stairs. Turning back, she raced towards the doors and smacked face first into her father.

‘There you are, dear,’ he said. He gripped her arm so tightly she yelped. She began to tug away, but then registered two gold triangles in dazzling white circles floating through the gloom towards her. The projections grew larger until they laid themselves across the pleats and cuttings of her ivory and coral dress; the Board’s emblem branded on her chest.

Ana froze. A thick blanket of numbness dropped over her. She struggled to pluck from her mind some reasonable 370

explanation for running from the Hal. She had to get them off her back long enough to escape.

As the silence ground against her, she heard a scuffle across the limestone flags. Jasper was limping up the aisle, panting.

‘Excuse me, excuse me,’ he said, forcing the Board and Ana’s father aside to reach her. He leaned in and kissed Ana on the lips. ‘That was unfair,’ he scolded. ‘I’m at a total disadvantage. I can’t compete.’ He spoke softly, but the acoustics carried his voice. The two Board members, stil puzzled, relaxed a little and stepped back.

Ana blushed. She hoped Cole wasn’t hiding in some balcony or stairway after al. She searched Jasper’s eyes, attempting to discern if the double meaning she’d heard in his words was intentional. His subconscious had remembered enough to make the star necklace; did he remembered enough to make the star necklace; did he have some inkling of what was going on?

Jasper’s parents and sister joined the gathering in the doorway. Lucy Taurel, tears streaming down her cheeks, puled Jasper and Ana to her, one under each arm and showered them with kisses. David shook hands with Ana’s father. Jasper’s sister hung back pouting, arms folded over her chest.

When Jasper’s mother finaly let go, Ana tucked her arm under Jasper’s and said, ‘Let me help you to the car.’

They wobbled forward, each supporting the other across the gravel drive, the eyes of the Board and their parents pressing into their backs.

*

371

Palm held against the window, Ana scanned the streets.

They were almost at the checkpoint, folowing the short crocodile of chauffeur-driven cars carrying her father, the Taurels, the Board and Warden Dombrant, who’d appeared outside the Community Hal just as she and Jasper were getting into their car.

Ana’s mind raced. She’d seen Cole, she’d definitely seen him standing up in the Community Hal galery, but now she questioned the soundness of her state of mind. Cole couldn’t have disappeared afterwards. Besides, how would he have got into the Community? How would he have known where to find her? Why would he risk coming just to sneak away?

She thought of his Glimpse. The kiss. They stil hadn’t kissed. She found herself desperately praying for the future he’d seen. They could stil be together. If he wasn’t halfway to America, they could be together.

‘Who are you looking for?’ Jasper asked, cutting through her frantic thoughts.

Nick, driving Ana’s father, was now moving through the checkpoint ahead of them. Jasper’s driver puled up behind, the last of the convoy. If they did a U-turn, Ashby, the Warden and the Board couldn’t folow directly, they’d have to each come back through the checkpoint on the other side.

Ana turned to Jasper, guilt trickling into her heart. ‘The Royal Academy’s only two minutes from here,’ she said, pinching her mouth into an awkward smile. ‘Would it be al right if we stopped off? I forgot something. I left my um, my music.’

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‘Your music?’

‘Of course, you don’t remember. I take piano lessons on a Sunday with Professor Eidleman.’

Jasper leaned forward and slid back the glass panel between them and the driver. ‘We’re going to stop off at the Royal Academy,’ he said.

‘Marylebone Road,’ Ana whispered.

‘Marylebone Road,’ Jasper repeated to the driver.

Ana’s stomach clenched with nerves. She had no idea Ana’s stomach clenched with nerves. She had no idea what she was going to do once she got to the Academy.

Perhaps she could write a note for Cole and leave it with her piano teacher. Perhaps Professor Eidleman would know of some way she could contact Cole – after al, he was part-time staff.

Ana tried to remember the Project hotline number Jasper had caled the night of his abduction. She’d seen it in court highlighted on Jasper’s phone bil. But her mind had only a hazy recolection of the projection screen. She’d been too distracted by Cole’s presence, the way his energy surrounded and puled at her.

Jasper’s driver turned about and headed south along Park Road towards Baker Street. Tension built in Ana like a crescendo. She glanced back through the windscreen. So far Nick hadn’t altered the course of her father’s car to folow.

But he would.

Perching forward, she slid back the window divide to the front. ‘Excuse me,’ she said to the driver. ‘Could we go a little faster? My music teacher wil be leaving the Academy any minute now and I don’t want to miss him.’

The driver accelerated from the leisurely twenty miles an 373

hour up to thirty five. Ana glanced through the back windscreen again. She could no longer see the checkpoint or her father’s saloon.

‘I looked up my brother’s death,’ Jasper said, ‘before they took away my interface.’

Ana jolted – it was as though she kept forgetting Jasper was there. But he was, and each time he reminded her of it she felt a tug of self-reproach drawing her towards him and away from Cole.

‘Why would Tom have been wandering around on a clifftop in the middle of nowhere?’ he asked.

Ana looked at him. Their last meeting had not gone wel, but Jasper seemed to have woken up a bit since then, even if he couldn’t remember a vast chunk of his past.

‘It’s a good question.’

‘Do you know the answer?’

‘Do you stil believe I’ve concocted a fantasy about my abduction?’

Jasper drummed his fingers against the door handle.

‘Nothing adds up,’ he said.

‘Nothing they’ve told you.’

He frowned and then slowly raised a short blonde hair from her head. ‘Was it always this short? I have a feeling it should be longer.’

‘I . . . Something happened to me out there, Jasper. I can’t go back. I can’t be who I was.’

‘I have no idea who you were,’ he said smiling, the warmth and humour of the boy she’d once fantasised about, breaking through. ‘I don’t think that’l be a problem.’

‘It’s a problem for me,’ she said.

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The driver stopped at the Baker Street checkpoint. They passed forward their ID sticks, neither of them looking at the other.

‘I don’t want to hurt you, Jasper,’ she murmured. The barrier rose and the saloon plunged on to Marylebone Road into the vast crowds of grungy men, women and children, pressing in the opposite direction.

‘If you didn’t want to be joined, why did you go through with the ceremony?’

‘I thought I didn’t have a choice.’

Jasper hunched over his own window, considering. After a moment, he said, ‘What are they doing out there?’

Ana glanced at the crowds. ‘There’s a smal restaurant up the road. Everyone’s waiting for the leftovers they throw at the end of the day.’

‘But it’s only four o’clock.’

‘And there are over a hundred people queuing for a few burgers and stale loaves of bread.’

A frown returned to Jasper’s face making him appear haggard. Ana fiddled with the wooden star. There was a little catch to hide something inside, but the secret pocket was empty.

‘Why did you make me this?’ she asked.

‘It reminded me of another one I had.’

‘You remember it?’

Jasper clenched his jaw and squinted, like daggers of pain were firing through his skul. ‘Yes, I think it was important to me. But I can’t find it. And I know it sounds odd, but I have a feeling I gave it to your dad.’

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Coldness slid through Ana. Her father
did
have the evidence.

‘Let’s get out,’ she said, popping open her door. ‘We’l be faster walking.’

Jasper looked horrified. The chauffeur whipped around in his seat, gaping at her like she’d lost her mind. Ana hopped down, raised her dress up to her knees and began weaving through the crowds. Only a hundred metres and she would reach the relative safety of the Academy.

Undernourished men and women stared as she twisted and ducked between them. Some reached out to touch the silk of her dress. Others cursed and spat in her direction.

Reaching the Academy’s arched double doors, she pressed her ID stick into the sensor pad. As the doors clicked open, she shot inside and closed them firmly behind her.

The noise of the street crowds grew muffled. Far off, notes of a single violin cut the stil air. Ana leaned against notes of a single violin cut the stil air. Ana leaned against the doors breathing heavily. The familiar entrance hal, with its initial impression of grandeur and the usual signs of dilapidation and neglect slowly rising to one’s awareness, calmed her. She took in the paint flaking from the cherub wal fresco; the ceiling that hadn’t been painted in thirty-two years; the glass in the lamps over the unmanned reception desks which were cracked and missing.

Professor Eidleman usualy taught in the Barbiroli room.

Ana headed through the grand arch and up the main stairs. As she reached the third floor she heard a dreamy, lyrical refrain from Schumann’s A Minor Piano Concerto.

She knocked on the Barbiroli door, and then, imagin-ing her father and Jasper and the Board gathering in the 376

entrance three floors below, decided there was no time to waste on formalities and burst into the room.

The piano playing halted immediately. A pretty Chinese-looking girl with hair down to her waist looked up from the keys, frightened.

‘Ana?’ Professor Eidleman said, turning towards the door.

‘I’m sorry!’ She rushed over to him. His warm familiarity made her want to sit down and sob.

‘Are you OK? I’ve been terribly concerned about you.’

‘I can’t explain. I need help,’ she said. Her words tumbled over each other. ‘Do you know Cole Winter?

He’s a visiting professor, teaches composition part-time.

I desperately need to get hold of him before they come I desperately need to get hold of him before they come and get me. I’m desperate. I have to speak to him.’

‘Sarah, please go on as you were,’ the professor instructed. Schumann’s melody floated from the piano.

Professor Eidleman waved a hand across his interface to power it up. He took the transparent plastic tag around his neck and held it in front of his chest. The interface began projecting digital information on to the card: A list of departmental professors.

‘Composition you said?’

Ana nodded. The professor scanned down to Cole’s name and selected contact details. Ana’s chest hurt.

Each heartbeat made her throb with anticipation.

Professor Eidleman selected the number and hand-gestured dialing.

Ana heard ringing; then Cole’s voice.

‘Helo?’

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‘This is Scott Eidleman from the Academy. I have a student here who needs to talk to you.’

‘Cole?’ she squeaked. Her voice sounded so weak and pathetic even the pianist girl’s playing froze over. ‘Cole?’

There was a pause. An aching, endless, smothering pause, which ended when the line went dead.

Shock flared inside Ana. Cole refused to speak to her.

He thought she’d chosen the Community, the Pures, He thought she’d chosen the Community, the Pures, Jasper . . .

‘I’m sorry, Ana,’ the professor said, guiding her to the door. ‘I’l be finished in fifteen minutes. Why don’t you wait out here and we’l talk then?’

Ana floundered into the hal, barely seeing the staircase, the arched windows, the dirt-streaked wals. The door rattled closed. How could Cole think she’d chosen Jasper?

She drifted down the stairs. Voices stirred in the back of her mind. She reached the first floor, barely aware that she was moving. But now the voices were loud and intrusive. She snapped awake, leaned over the banister.

There was a commotion in the halway below. A wal of Wardens blocked the large central arch leading up the stairs. Jasper was standing behind them, along with his parents and Ana’s father. Twenty or thirty people were gathered in the main entry, many of them filming with their interfaces. On the left, a professional camera crew with a reporter and boom operator thrust forward. The reporter was addressing the camera, then she turned and caled across the crowds to get Jasper’s attention.

Ana sank back into the corridor. Her thoughts felt as though they were spiling al over the place. She struggled to colect them together. She’d joined with Jasper to make 378