Shades of Grey

The Chair Census

“Ah!” said Sally Gamboge when she saw me. “We were told you were in the zone. Reason?”

“The Vermeer.”

“Of course,” she replied, “what other reason could you have?

We’re here to help you conduct your chair census.”

“You are?”

“Yes indeed,” replied Bunty in a friendly manner that was completely at odds with her hue, “since you have so selflessly committed yourself to the exploration of High Saffron, we thought we would selflessly commit ourselves to helping you finish the task that you were sent here to do.”

“You don’t mind us helping, do you?” asked Sally Gamboge, who wore a smile wholly alien to her features. “Well—” She didn’t wait for an answer, and instead went to the first door and banged three times in a way that wasn’t designed to be friendly. A middle-aged man answered, and started when he saw the unwelcome flash of synthetic yellow on his doorstep.

“Chair census,” announced Mrs. Gamboge, “by order of Head Office. You have no objections, I trust?”

It wasn’t a question she actually wanted or needed an answer for, and she swiftly directed her charges to conduct a “full chair search” while I stood on the step with the resident.

“Hello,” I said. “Edward Russett.”

“Hello,” said the man, glaring at me suspiciously.

“It’s a Head Office assignment,” I said, feeling a bit stupid.

“And that gives you the freedom to look through my house?”

“Anyone conducting a census is an agent of Head Office, and has right of access.”

“Hmm,” he said doubtfully. “Aren’t you the one starting a Question Club?”

“I hope so.”

“Then you can ask this: Why did the Previous insist on separate taps for hot and cold?”

“Why not raise the question yourself at the first meeting? I may not be able to make it.”

The Yellows all trooped out a few minutes later, and reported seven chairs, two sofas and a piano stool.

“Thank you for your time,” I said as politely as I could, and followed the Gamboges and Bunty as they moved next door. They were already beginning to attract a small group of Greys. It was early afternoon, and the zone was mostly empty—but then I didn’t think they would have attempted a census when people were at home.

Mrs. Gamboge knocked at the door of the next house, and it opened to reveal a young woman who stared at the prefect in an insolent manner that, if outside the Greyzone, would have instantly led to a heavy demerit.

“Chair census,” announced Sally Gamboge, “by order of Head Office.”

The young Grey looked at us all in turn. “Right. And I’m the Colorman.”

The impertinence was too much for Courtland. “Are you calling my mother a liar, Wendy?”

“We don’t have many Rules in our favor,” she retorted, “but privacy of dwelling is one of them.”

“Russett,” said the prefect, “show Wendy your assignment.”

I told her I didn’t have it with me, but Bunty produced it like a conjuring trick.

“I took the liberty of fetching it from your bedroom,” she said, handing it over.

“That seems to be in order,” murmured the Grey after studying my assignment carefully, and the Yellows walked in without another word. They were more cautious this time, as though expecting a Riffraff snare under the hall carpet or something.

“Sorry about this,” I said to Wendy as we stood in the hall. She didn’t answer, and instead glared at me until the Yellows returned with a list of chairs in their notebooks.

“Listen,” I said as Mrs. Gamboge was about to knock on the door of the next dwelling, “this is all a bit awkward—why don’t we ask the Greys to do a self-declaration?”

“That would be a waste of time,” declared Bunty. “Greys are the most consummate of liars.”

“You don’t actually have to be here at all,” added Penelope, who despite being the smallest and youngest, managed to ooze just as much unpleasantness as the rest of them. “Why don’t you bog off home and leave the serious census taking to the professionals?”

“I’m staying,” I said.

Mrs. Gamboge grunted, and knocked on the next door. She took a step back when the door was answered—by Jane.

“Well, well,” she said, “you don’t see a Yellow in the Greyzone for years, and then four come along together.”

“This isn’t your house, Jane,” observed Mrs. Gamboge suspiciously.

“The Rot take your hue, Gamboge.”

They all took a sharp intake of breath, and I could see them rankle at not just the insult, but the supreme lack of respect that accompanied it.

“Three days to go until the Night Train,” remarked Sally, “and still unrepentant. I pity your poor Reboot mentor. Mind you, there’s always the Magnolia Room for hard nuts. Show her your warrant, Russett.”

Jane read the assignment, then waved the Yellows past.

“What’s going on, Jane?”

“Did I say you could use my name?”

“No.”

“Then don’t. Now, I want you to stop all this.”

“I don’t have any control over the Yellows.”

“Come on, Red—show some grit for a change. Stand up and be counted.”

I took a deep breath. “I want you to come with me to High Saffron.”

“And I told you: I don’t do death on a first date.”

“You could do with the merits. You could buy your way out of Reboot. You said yourself that legging it on the conveyor or staying at Rusty Hill wasn’t an ideal situation.”

Courtland walked past. Jane put out her foot and he stumbled on it, glared at her and then went into the basement.

“Watch out for that one. The village will go all to Beige in a match pot when his mother retires. You and I are going to have to take care of him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Take him out,” she said, “you and me. Together. Now that would be a first date to remember.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, hoping she was pulling my leg, “I never do death on a first date.”

She laughed. Delightfully so, in fact. But then her attention was taken by the Yellows, who were opening cupboards and drawers to “check for folding chairs,” as they put it, and Jane leaned forward and spoke in a urgent voice.

“Fun’s over. You have to put a stop to this!”

“But I’ve got to conduct my chair census. Orders from Head Office.”

“Plums to Head Office,” she replied. “You think the Yellows are really here to count chairs?”

“What else would they be doing?”

She sighed.

“It’s a merit sweep, dummy. They’re using your chair census as an excuse to go through our stuff and log infractions. The more demerits they find, the harder we have to work to earn them back. But they can only do it during an official Head Office census—it’s the Rules.”

“I go to High Saffron tomorrow.”

“Exactly. The census dies with you, so they’re just exploiting the opportunity while they can. The thing is, there is stuff here they shouldn’t find. Things that have to stay hidden. If they find them, the Yellows can’t leave the zone and will end up beneath a patio or something. Perhaps we’ll get away with it, but as likely as not we won’t. You want the death of four Yellows on your conscience?”

“Is this some sort of prank or something?”

She stared at me. It was clear that it wasn’t.

“What secret do you have here that you’d kill for?”

“Stop the search, Red. You can save the lives of four people you don’t much like, and who cause us untold misery. Sort of a weird ethical dilemma, isn’t it?”

“Will you come with me to High Saffron?”

“Red, you have to do this one for yourself.”

At that moment Sally Gamboge returned and barked out her chair tally. Before I could even think about Jane’s request, Sally Gamboge had moved next door and demanded entry. The Grey homeowner was older and less abrasive than Jane, and he started to panic. I caught Jane’s eye and she looked upward, toward the attic.

“I’ll do the top floor,” I announced. “It’s time I did some chair counting myself.”

The Yellows looked at one another but could raise no realistic objections, and I mounted the steep, narrow stairs to the third floor while Penelope and Bunty searched the second. The stair twisted back on itself, and by the time I got to the top landing and paused in the dim light from the skylight, my heart was beating fiercely. I grasped the handle and carefully opened the door.

The only light came from a thin, mullioned window at the far end, which afforded the room only meager light. I could just make out a small bed, a table, a bureau and a pitch-pine chest. There was a single chair in the middle of the room, and it was occupied by an old woman. She was dressed in a simple linen smock, had no spot or any merit badges and was knitting a long scarf that lay in an untidy cascade at her feet. Her hands were twisted and gnarled like old roots, and although I could see no detail in her face, her cheekbones were prominent and her slack skin hung in soft folds that jangled when she spoke. If she had not moved, I would have considered her to be sundried Nightloss, such that we find from time to time.

She stopped what she was doing when I walked in but didn’t look up—she simply listened in a peculiar manner.

“Jane?”

“No—Edward Russett.”

“The new swatchman’s son?”

“Yes, ma’am. What are you doing up here?”

“Not much,” she replied, “but I have my knitting—and Renfrew at bedtimes.”

She reached for the glass of water that was next to her, but she didn’t look—she just moved her fingertips across the tabletop until they encountered the glass, then grasped it. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, and I felt myself tremble. This was something I had never before encountered, nor ever thought I would.

“You’re . . . blind!”

She gave out a short laugh.

“We are all blind, Master Edward—just some more than others.”

“But you can’t be,” I blurted out. “As soon as poor sight becomes apparent, then Variant-B kicks in and, and, well—look here, you should be studied, not kept in an attic!”

“Hmm,” she said, “Jane told me you were a bit foolish. I have to stay hidden for I dispel fear, and fear is a commodity much needed by the Collective.”

“Fear of the night?”

“Yes; a couple of sightless people kicking around would really finish off that particular nonsense, now wouldn’t it?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Then you have fulfilled all that is expected of you. What’s going on downstairs?”

“A merit sweep by the Gamboges.”

“Jane also told me you showed potential,” said the old lady. “I suggest you show it. It’s time you left.”

I closed the attic door and ran downstairs, where I met Jane on the doorstep. A larger crowd of Greys had turned up from the fields, glasshouse and factory. Some even carried tools. The mood had grown darker.

“How did you get along with Mrs. Olive?” asked Jane.

I looked around nervously, and the crowd stared back at me silently.

“How many do you have hidden?” I asked.

“Sixteen in the Greyzone and one living above you. Mostly damaged Nightloss, a few Rebootees. Five are blind and one of them can’t move anything from the waist down. To the prefects they’re ‘unlicensed supernumeraries’and harboring them carries a twenty thousand demerit—applicable to anyone who lives in the house or ‘could not have reasonably failed to know.’ ”

“Unlicensed supernumeraries?” I echoed, having never heard the term.

“I agree it’s somewhat dispassionate. We just call them ‘the Extras.’ ”

“Tommo’s Ulrika of the Flak,” I said, recalling the sandwiches he had left for an imaginary friend in the flak tower. “Does he know about them?”

“Thankfully not. But feeding imaginary friends has a long tradition, and the sandwiches are always welcome. Do you know how hard it is to smuggle food out of the dining room?”

I answered that I did, because the lunch monitors had the power of Stop and Search—eating between meals was strictly forbidden.

“So try doing it for sixteen people—even with Apocrypha on your side.”

“Perkins Muffleberry back home,” I murmured. “I left food for him in the hollow beech. It was always gone by the morning.”

She laid a hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t sweat it, Red,” she said, doubtless reading the despondency in my face. “Few people see anything at all. Everything might look fine and dandy on the outside, but behind the closed door there’s a fire raging. Now, will you stop this from getting any worse?”

“Yes,” I said quietly, as the full scale of what was going on suddenly became apparent, “I think you’re right.”

“What did you find up there?” asked Sally Gamboge, stepping out of the house.

“A three-person bench and an armchair,” I replied, voice cracking.

“Very well,” said the prefect, and she made a move toward the next house.

“Wait!”

She stopped.

“I have decided,” I said slowly, “to conduct my chair census in a less . . . intrusive manner.”

I started to sweat and swallowed down my nervousness as the Yellows all glared at me.

“No, you haven’t,” said Little Penelope Gamboge in a belligerent screech. “You’ll do this census the Yellow prefect’s way, or you won’t do it at all!”

“Then I won’t do it at all.”

“You will,” said Sally Gamboge, “and that’s a Direct Order.”

“I’ll be dead on the road to High Saffron in under twenty-four hours,” I replied, the apprehension in my voice readily apparent. “I can certainly afford to defy you on this occasion, ma’am.”

“Your almost certain death is precisely why we need to hurry this along,” remarked Bunty with a singular lack of empathy. “If Head Office has entrusted you to conduct this important work, it behooves you to complete it as soon as you can. The Collective expects all residents to act with the highest level of integrity.”

“The answer is NO.”

They stared at me for a moment in astonishment.

“We’ll magnanimously let you reconsider that last response, Russett,” observed Courtland. “Refusing a Direct Order from a prefect carries a maximum five hundred demerit. Haven’t you lost enough merits today already?”

I had—and a loss of five hundred more would put me teetering on the edge of Reboot. It was all so hopelessly unfair. I was refusing not just in order to keep the Extras hidden but to save the Yellows. The Greys who were standing close by were not just idle onlookers but there to defend the secrets in the attics and their potential twenty thousand demerit for complicity. I looked at Jane, the Greys—and then the Yellows, who were completely oblivious to just how close they were to becoming compost.

But then, just as I was about to confirm my rejection of Gamboge’s Direct Order, take the five hundred hit, reduce my merits to zero and kiss farewell to an Oxblood marriage this decade, relief came from an unexpected quarter—the postman.

He walked into the small knot of people, nodded us all a greeting and gave out the mail. The situation had an odd, even surreal quality about it. If a piano should suddenly have fallen from the sky or a talking bear rode past on a bike, I would not have been unduly surprised. We all stood there, momentarily paused.

We said nothing as the mail was handed out and just looked at one another suspiciously.

“Oh, look,” said the postman, “there’s even a package for you, Penelope.”

He handed the youngest Gamboge a parcel, tipped his cap and moved off. And as soon as he had, the balance suddenly tipped in my favor. I recognized the parcel.

“Okay,” said Courtland, “last chance. Are you refusing a Direct Order?”

I stared back at him. I had been sent to the Fringes to learn a lesson in humility, and I was —but not from the prefects or anyone in authority. I was learning it from the Greys, who were harboring damaged Nightloss in their attics at huge personal risk to themselves.

“You speak of integrity?” I said, my voice no longer tremulous. “Would that be the same integrity that had you allocate Travis Canary’s postcode the day before we even knew he was dead?”

There was a deathly hush. Travis had carried a prestigious TO3 postcode from the traditional Yellow Honeybun Peninsula. It was the sort of postcode that could open yellow doors. The sort of postcode that could get a Yellow away from a Fringes village forever. It was the sort of postcode, in fact, that a pushy grandmother and a murderous uncle might do anything to procure, so that their granddaughter and niece would have a better chance in life. Penelope Gamboge. She had been allocated Travis’ code on the last day possible—her twelfth birthday.

“I sent Travis’ personal effects back to his postcode,” I said, “thinking the redirects wouldn’t be up yet. I was wrong. The parcel has just been delivered.”

Bunty and Penelope looked confused, but Sally Gamboge and Courtland looked at each other, then at the parcel. The arrogant veneer suddenly dropped, and there was silence for almost a full minute.

“He was Nightloss and as good as dead,” growled Mrs Gamboge, “so I just preempted the inevitable.

I’ll take the hit for that.”

She stared at me, and I stared back. They might argue their way out of the Daylighter in Travis’ head or the reallocation, but not both together. But I think the Gamboges knew that.

“This census is henceforth canceled,” said Prefect Gamboge quietly. “Bunty, hand Master Russett back his assignment.”

“What—?”

“Do as I say, Miss McMustard.”

She handed it over, and I considered it was probably time to leave, so I walked quickly away, leaving a foursome of loathing and loathed Yellows within a knot of disgruntled Greyfolk, whose sixteen charges remained unmolested and secret. I also left a Grey with a retrousse nose who was, I hoped, impressed enough to join me on the trip to High Saffron.