Shades of Grey

Return to East Carmine

We drove in silence for the first ten minutes, Jane concentrating on getting us home as quick as possible, but without mishap. I was sitting on the flatbed with Tommo, and Jane and Violet were up in the cab, silently ignoring each other. When Jane and I arrived, Tommo had been sitting in the Faraday cage at the side of the road, with Violet positioned on the Ford’s running board facing away from him. She looked beside herself with rage and had doubtless been venting her anger on him for most of the day, which can’t have been a huge bundle of laughs, even with someone like Tommo, who deserved it as much as anyone.

It was lucky that it was a clear evening; navigation might still be possible ten or fifteen minutes after sundown. Jane could have driven us all the way home, of course, but she’d told me she would keep her pupils locked tight and suffer the same woeful lack of night sight as the rest of us. We all knew we weren’t going to make it; the question was how far we would get. But the other unasked question could not be ignored forever, and it was Tommo who finally asked it. “Where’s Courtland?”

“He got taken by a yateveo on the walk back.”

“Wow,” said Tommo. “But you’re okay, right?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’ve no idea how good that makes me feel.”

“Well, thanks, Tommo.”

“Oh, it’s nothing personal,” he said, just in case I misconstrued his meaning. “If both of you had been killed, I would have stood to lose a fortune on my sweep. At least this way I get to break even. And listen,” he added, “that really hurt when you kicked me.”

“And you were going to leave me to starve to death in the flak tower. Do you want to make something of this?”

“No.”

“That Tommo is a reptile,” said Violet. “If I find myself alone with him again I will feed him poison, and accept the consequences.”

“And I’d gladly drink it.”

We drove on down the road, on several occasions running dangerously close to the verge as Jane took the sweeping corners recklessly fast. I looked across at the sun, which was just beginning to touch the hilltops. I turned back and Violet caught my eye, smiled, bit her lip and then attempted some repairs.

“Edward, darling,” she said, “I’m so sorry about what happened early this morning. It was theft of the most malicious kind. But we were all just so worried that you might not have returned, and the deMauve lineage has much benefit to offer the village. You do understand how important that is, don’t you?”

I thought carefully. “I’ll forgive you, Violet, as long as you defer the seven hundred merits you should have earned to Jane Grey here.”

She consented easily to this without looking at Jane, and I asked Tommo to be my witness, to which he readily agreed.

“You are a dear!” said Violet. “I declare our marriage firmly back on—Mummy and Daddy will be delighted.”

“I won’t be marrying you, Violet.”

“I’m only pretending you have a choice to be polite,” she said in a more forceful tone. “In fact, there isn’t a choice at all.”

“I could be on a promise.”

She gave out a short gale of laughter. “No one in the village would dare to offer you a promise while I’m the front-runner,” she declaimed haughtily. “That’s the advantage of having so many people eager to be your friend.”

There was a pause in which she stared at me, and I stared back with an unconcerned look. Then she frowned and glanced at Jane, then at me, and then the penny dropped.

“Oh, no. That is so sad. Please tell me you’re joking.”

“I’m not joking, Violet.”

“I withdraw my pledge of seven hundred merits. Cinnabar, you heard nothing.”

“I most certainly did,” he replied, their argument—whatever it was—still firmly in his mind.

“Listen here, Russett,” said Violet. “If you’re after a bit of youknow on the side, I don’t mind. In fact, you could definitely do with the practice. I’ll even give you the two merits it’ll cost you.” She winced, expecting to be punched—no doubt her intention—but Jane ignored her and just continued to negotiate the turns of the road as we thundered on toward East Carmine.

“I aim to lead a blameless life from now on,” Jane remarked evenly, “tending to my Civil Obligation and my husband.”

Violet made a face.

“Even the thought makes me want to vomit. Jane Russett sitting at High Table with the rest of the prefects? Have you any idea how shabby and nouveau couleur that is?”

Even Tommo was beginning to get concerned.

“Listen,” he said to me, “I’m all for this annoying-Violet game. In fact, I wholeheartedly applaud it. But this is some sort of huge scam, right? You’re holding out for more cash because she tricked you into a harvest? If that’s the case, you need to speak to me to renegotiate. We might up it to twelve grand, but even the deMauves will draw the line eventually.”

“Don’t see me as you, Tommo. I don’t want to marry Violet, I want to marry Jane. I think we should marry who we want. It’s as simple as that.”

“And what about my marriage fantasy league?” he asked. “Do you have any idea how hard I’ve worked on that?”

“Dangles to your stupid league,” interrupted Violet. “What about our baby? Could you really see it growing up to be Doug’s?”

“You tricked me. And if you go public, the deMauves are finished as head prefects. Your family would have to go to Grey and back before they’d be reinstated.”

She fell silent, deep in thought. There was truth in what I said. Although my father and I would also get it in the neck for our involvement, the deMauves had far more to lose.

The sun dipped below the horizon as we reached the first of the dams, and with only ten minutes or so of navigable light left, we weren’t going to make it home. Or at least, not tonight. It would be a cold and lonely night, huddled in the cab, and not helped by Violet, who would doubtless complain volubly until dawn.

“Hey,” said Violet, suddenly changing tack and addressing Jane directly, “would you like to be my friend? I have lots of friends. Some say, in fact, that I have more friends than anyone else in the village.”

“I think I can live quite happily without your friendship, Miss Violet.”

“Then I’ll buy him off you,” said Violet impatiently. “How much do you want?”

“He’s not for sale. Not at any price.”

“I can get you a cushy job at the linoleum factory.”

“I’ll be the Red prefect’s wife,” replied Jane coolly. “Why would I want to work there?”

“You’re getting above yourself,” she remarked, her voice rising. “You are horribly arrogant. This is because you think you’ve got a better nose than me, isn’t it?”

Jane turned to look at her.

“I don’t think I’ve got a better nose than you. I know I have a better nose than you. If the arbitrary division by which the Collective is split were set by nose quality rather than color vision, I’d be head prefect.”

“And,” I added, eager to back her up, “if it were run on the basis of who was best at manipulative dishonesty, it would be Tommo.”

“If it were run on those who demonstrated the most smug, pompous, and self-satisfied attitude,” continued Tommo, eager not to be left out, “you’d both run it jointly.”

We traveled on in silence, and as we approached the marshy area where we had seen the flamingos earlier, the light fell abruptly within the valley walls, and Jane slowed to a stop as a wall of impenetrable darkness loomed up in front of us. We could still see the sky, but everything below the line of the ridge was a muddy gloom that seemed to dance and ripple as our eyes attempted to give it some sort of form.

I heard Violet swear, then make some comment on how her parents would be sick with worry. But this was as far as we could go without artificial light. Or at least, as far as we were willing to admit we could go.

“Tommo,” I said, “did you steal one of the lightglobes from the flak tower?”

“I got kicked in the ribs,” came a sour voice from the darkness. “My mind was on other matters.”

“I think we should sing,” said Violet after a pause.

“If you do, I’m taking my chances with the night,” retorted Tommo.

And they started to bicker.

“Yewberry gave me three hand flares,” I announced as I rummaged in my bag. “Each one will last five minutes. They might get us as far as the closest dam to the village, and within line of sight. They’ll be keeping an eye out for us, so at least they’ll know we’re all right. Who wants to have a crack at it?” Violet was of the opinion that we should stay where we were and use the flares throughout the night to ward off Pookas, Riffraff and nocturnal biting animals. Jane was for pressing on, and Tommo was past caring one way or the other. I took Jane’s and my opinion as a consensus, so fumbled my way to the front of the car, perched myself on the front bumper and lit the first flare. It sputtered into life, and by the meager light that penetrated less than twenty feet ahead, we moved off. It was slow going, and by the time the first one had burned out and I’d started the second, we had reached the broken bridge. I began to think this was a poor idea when the second flare burned out without any end of the reservoir in sight, and when I fired up the third and final one, the tension in the Ford was painfully high. We were about a minute from the end of the final flare when I spotted a fine white point of light in the distance. It looked at first to be the lamppost, but it couldn’t have been this far out, and as we drew closer I could see that it was another flare, but this time a large Daylighter, which spread a flickering white light a hundred yards in every direction while giving off a rasping hiss and a pall of dense white smoke. Flares were used sparingly, and only to effect an emergency night extraction of a valuable member of the community. Violet or Courtland, for instance.

We drew level as my hand flare gave out, and we could see that the Daylighter had not long to burn, so we carried on to the next flare, and the next. It was in this manner that we returned to the stockwall gates, past the linoleum factory and into the outfall of the main lamppost, where all the prefects and most of the village were waiting for us. After the initial relief and cries of joy, Courtland’s absence was noted.