The Prisoner (1979) (2 page)

A
nd some mornings it was:

‘You there, Number Six, wake up.’

The cool grey light of the television flickered against the living-room floor and its speaker rattled with sharp, insistent demands.

‘Get up, Number Six. I want to talk to you.’

The bathroom tile was cold, the tap water icy and fresh.

‘You haven’t been adjusting, co-operating. Why is that? Is there anything we can do to make your stay more comfortable? Is there something you lack?’

But the shower was hot. Steam rolling up the walls in a pebbly grey finish.

‘We have tried to satisfy you, tried to help you fit in. Just what is your problem? We’ll be glad to help, if only you’d ask. That’s all we want, really, to make you happy here. What is it? What can we do? Answer me, Number Six. Do you hear? Speak up.’

A small sauce pan, a large pat of butter, a quarter cup of flour, some salt, a pinch of cayenne, and milk.

‘Speak up. I will not tolerate this silence. It is your duty as a citizen to speak. I demand you answer me.’

The yolks of four eggs beaten until thick (the shining metal blades cutting into the rich yellow vitelline).

‘Answer me. Speak up. I’m warning you. I won’t tolerate this kind of disobedience. You can’t flout authority in this manner. You can be made to speak, you know. There are ways of dealing with you.’

Then the whites, whipped to stiff peaks.

‘Come in here where I can see you, this instant. I will brook no further delay. I want to see you and I want to see you now. I know you’re in the kitchen. You’re always in the kitchen. You’ll make some woman a wonderful wife someday. Your culinary expertise is well known. Now get in here and listen.’

Fresh, springy bits of cheddar dropped into the pan, and the flat plastic blade of the spatula stirring it in.

‘There simply isn’t room in this Village for someone who will not co-operate. We all have to work together to make it a fit place to live. And it will take all our efforts. The welfare of this Village must come before that of any one individual. Surely you see that?’

Then the yolk into the cheese batter and the mixture over the whites.

‘We can only progress if we progress together. We must work in harmony and good fellowship. That’s the only way we can build a community free from distrust, dissent, and unhappiness. One family, working together, playing together, living together. That’s our ideal, a true mutuality of mankind. If you would seek to know what you could do for others, not what they might do for you, you would find rewards of which you have never dreamed.’

The whole into souffle dish and into the oven.

‘Our differences of opinion need only be set aside to achieve mankind’s dream: Community. There need be nothing to mar our brotherhood. And in this golden isle, all will shine more brightly.’

An hour of calisthenics and a fifteen-minute jog.

Then breakfast.

‘I want to see you here, in my office, at four o’clock. Do you understand? Number Six, answer me! Four o’clock. Not a minute later. I can have you brought, you know. I don’t have to be polite. You’ve been allowed more than enough freedom in the past. It’s a privilege you’ve abused. If you can’t accept its responsibilities—Was that the door? Did you—’

The voice cut from speaker to speaker in the grey morning fog.

‘I can see you, Number Six. I know what you’re doing, where you’re going. There are no secrets in this Village, no private existence. There is no need for privacy when all men are as one. Why not join us, give us a chance. We stand ready to help you. You have only to ask.’

The tall, candy-striped poles with their square metal hoods and glittering camera eyes waited at each corner, speakers crackling with cool electric life.

‘We are simply not going to accommodate ourselves to you. Get that thought out of your head. You’re not that important. You have a certain value to us, yes. But nothing so great as you think. You are no more than a cog in our machine, and you must be made to work smoothly. You will be made to work smoothly. There is room only for harmony. And we
will
have harmony.’

Number 105’s house was shuttered and dark. The roses bright with dew.

‘Think about that: harmony and beauty. A village living in peace and contentment, a model for the world to follow. Oh, if you’d only let yourself go, you’d find us the best of fellows. There’s so much to do, you could really be quite comfortable here. It’s only your attitude that can’t be tolerated. We love the real you.’

Ting-a-ling-ling.

Chop. Number 87’s cleaver cut through the beef. Chop. Chop. Chop. Steady, even slices, the silver wedge of the blade striking down against the wooden cutting board. Chop. Chop. Chop.

‘Good morning, Number Eighty-seven.’

A mean, resentful look from tiny eyes set deep over quivering, sullen jowls. ‘Number Six.’

‘And how are you this morning?’

‘Well enough, thank you. Your order?’ He produced pad and pen.

‘Chopped liver.’

‘Off today.’

‘In that case…Kippers, definitely kippers.’

‘Off today.’

‘What would you recommend?’

‘Couldn’t say.’

‘One of those steaks…No. Not the fat one. That one there.’

‘Some people…know-it-alls…’ he muttered. ‘Disparaging a man’s…’

‘What was that, Eighty-seven?’

His hands moved deftly, folding the meat tightly into paper. ‘Here. That’ll be point eight five credit units.’

‘Charge—’

‘All right.’ He frowned down at the register. ‘Getting quite a balance, you are.’

‘Bill me at the end of the month,
as always,
and have this deliver—’

‘No deliveries today.’

‘No?

‘No. Number Twenty-four quit. Taken up a new career. Film-making it is. Just like these lads today: no sense of values. This profession was good enough for me father and it is good enough for me. Don’t see why they have to go off and get themselves involved in that foolishness.’ He picked up the cleaver and made an abrupt downward motion. Chop.

‘Be seeing you.’

Chop. Chop. Chop.

Ting-a-ling-ling.

‘—
in the Cultural Centre at two o’clock…And the Women’s League for Better Government will hold a benefit showing of
Gone With the Wind in
the Little Theatre this evening at half past seven. I repeat: There will be a display of the sculpture of our own Number Three Thirty-six this afternoon at two in the Cultural Centre. And this evening at half past seven the Women’s League for Better Government will hold a benefit showing of
Gone With the Wind
It’s for a good cause; please come and help promote mutuality in our Village. It is forty-two degrees centigrade and the wind is two point three miles an hour from the north-northeast. This is your Hostess, Number Two Fifteen, turning you over to the music of Mantovani with his arrangement of Yesterday.’

The day was grey, heavily overcast, the underbellies of the clouds moving in dark, ragged streamers. The wind chill, a faint foretaste of rain in the air. Gravel popped underfoot and the white gingerbread houses stood out sharp and vivid, grey-gabled roofs like battlements raised against the sky.

Ting-a-ling-ling.

The man sitting behind the counter, bent over a rolling machine, was large and beefy, a thin reddish beard covering his cheeks. The shop was pungent with the aroma of tobacco.

‘Yes. May I help you?’

‘Where is One Fifty-seven?’

‘He is no longer here.’ The man did not look up from his work.

‘What do you mean, “no longer here”?’

‘He left.’

‘For where?’

‘I wasn’t told.’

‘People do not just leave this Village.’

‘He did.’

‘Why?’

‘He was no longer wanted. He was not mutual.’ The man lifted his massive head, eyes fierce and black. ‘Why? Was he a
particular
friend of yours?’

‘No. I merely came to inquire about my order.’

He pulled a ledger towards him. ‘And you are?’

‘Number Six.’

‘Yes, of course,’ he nodded. ‘I might have known.’ He pushed the ledger away. ‘I’m afraid your order hasn’t gone through yet.’

‘What do you mean, “not gone through”?’

‘All orders have to be initialled by Number Two, you know.’

‘And he hasn’t initialled it?’

‘He could be busy. You know how these things are. I’m sure he’ll get to it soon.’

‘In the meanwhile, do you have any left?’

‘A few.’

‘Might I have them.’

‘Yes. Of course.’

He brought out a box. ‘There’s one more. Do you want it now?’

‘Will you hold it?’

‘If you wish.’

‘Please.’

‘You’re a polite one, you are.’

‘Be seeing you.’

Ting-a-ling-ling.

On the opposite side of the green the young film makers were grouped around their camera, one of them panning it slowly across the Village. A woman stood next to the blond leader. She raised a hand in greeting. ‘Yoohoo, Number Six. Come here a moment, won’t you?’

‘Good day, Number Thirty-two. How are you this morning?’

She regarded him thoughtfully, brow dimpled faintly in a frown. ‘There’s something I want you to hear, Number Six.’ She turned to her companion. ‘Tell him about it, Five Sixty-nine.’

‘Uh…’ He scowled and fingered a calibrated lens hanging from his neck. ‘It’s like this.’ He looked around warily. ‘My mates say you’re O.K. Thirty-two, well, she says you’re a regular bloke, too. So I guess I should tell you. I hear you’re in trouble, in dutch with the authorities, see. They wanta get you, you know?’

‘Get me? How?’

‘Oh, well.’ He looked at the ground and then up towards the sky. ‘I don’t exactly know. I just hear it, that’s all.’

‘Where?’

‘Oh, come on, man. Don’t push me. That’s all I know. Period.’ He walked off towards the camera.

‘Number Six?’ Her eyes were troubled, worried.

‘Yes?’

‘Why do you persist? You can’t defy them forever. My husband—poor Harry—he tried it, and look what it got him. Ah, don’t you see,’ her voice fell to a whisper. ‘You could at least pretend to give in, like the rest of us.’

‘I’ll keep it in mind.’

‘Hello, Number Six.’ A boy with a large nose greeted him.

‘Hello, Number Twenty-four.’

The boy looked worried, nervous.

The beach was cold, rank with a stench of ocean and seaweed.

‘There will be a class in “The Village—Its Charter and Government”, seven p.m., Tuesday the nineteenth, in the Civic Centre Meeting Hall. You’re all urged to attend. Citizenship is your right and privilege. Exercise it. Become more mutual today.’

‘Ah, lad,’ the Admiral waved from his umbrella, ‘a bit brisk today.’

‘If you’d rather—’

‘No. No. That’s all right. A drop of wine to take the chill off and I’ll be fine.’

A pawn was offered and rejected.

The new woman, Number Seven, came past them down the beach.

She was young, in her early twenties, with dark hair and a slender figure. She had a wistful expression, compounded of bitterness, disappointment and hope. And she looked at everything with a quick, uncertain glance, as if hoping in it she might find something of value, but knowing she would not.

Their eyes met for a moment, then she moved on, not quite smiling.

I
t was raining. He could hear the drumming of it against the roof. And, as simply as that, he was conscious.

He lay quietly for a while and listened to the rain. It was a good sound, clean and substantial: above suspicion. The weather was (save himself) the only thing he could trust.

He drew in a deep lungful of the sweet morning air and sat up, flesh contracting at the chill. He got out of bed, went into the grim, intestinal pink bathroom, rinsed his teeth and emptied his bladder. Then he stepped into the shower aned the hot water handle all the way around.

The water smashed against him, icy cold, shrivelling his scrotum and sending a hot flush up spine and neck into his face. He picked up the soap and began to lather.

The shower turned warm, then searing.

‘Good morning.’
The tinny shout of the television was louder even than the steaming crash of the water.
‘A cheery good morning. It’s seven-thirty here in the Village. Time for us all to be out of bed and about our business. We’ve all got to do our bit, you know, A job for everyone and everyone at his job.

‘Cloudy today, with a strong chance of showers, clearing late tonight or tomorrow. Be sure to wear your rubbers and carry your umbrellas. It will be wet.’

He turned off the water and got out, towelling himself dry and combing his hair.

Two eggs on to poach, a muffin in the toaster, and ham set sizzling. He melted a little butter, beat in a tablespoon of flour, a pinch of salt, some nutmeg and a dash of pepper. Then he mixed it with a third cup of cream and stirred till it was thick. A capful of white wine and a palmful of Swiss cheese finished the sauce.

He buttered the muffins, set ham on each, an egg on the ham, poured the sauce over the egg, added green pepper and chives, and sat down to breakfast.

There was a blistered, discoloured spot on the moulding by his feet. Must be a leak somewhere. He glanced up—the enamel was unblemished. Either water was trickling in down a beam or there was faulty plumbing behind the wall. This wasn’t a reasonable place for plumbing, though, and he’d gone over the rooftiles quite carefully this summer.

H
e dressed warmly in underwear, trousers, sweater and jacket, then laid his topcoat on the bed and turned to the mirror. He parted his hair high on the right side, sweeping it back straight at the temples.

His reflection stared back: brooding, enigmatic brow, straight nose, severe mouth, determined chin, fair Saxon complexion and wheat-straw hair looking stubborn and defiant.

Finished, he draped the overcoat across his arm and went into the living-room. He took the polished mahogany lid from his humidor and selected a handful of cigars, fitting them into a silver case and pocketing the case. There were less than a dozen left; he would have to see about his order. It might well have been filled by now. They had always gone out of their way to supply his individual brand before. Had, in fact, placed them here in anticipation of his arrival.

He had not (on that first day) been surprised to find them. Thoroughness (he had already surmised and was later to accept) was one of their characteristics and, however difficult the obtaining of these cigars must have been, they had not stinted, nor had he suspected any motive beyond thoroughness.

But now (replacing the lid) he wondered: Had so trivial an annoyance been prepared even then? Was everything, from the colour of the bathroom (so hideous he almost could not resist painting it) to the leak behind the wall (which he would, here at the beginning of winter with no chance of escape in sight, have to repair) a part of their plan? Did they hope, ultimately, to diminish him with minutiae, one grain at a time?

Quite deliberately he stilled his thoughts and gave himself up to the savouring of a cigar.