In the Blood by French Jackie

Author:French, Jackie [Jackie French]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780730450634
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Chapter 23

No one else remembered anything worthwhile about Doris.

‘She had red hair, didn’t she?’ said Ophelia vaguely, pouring plum sauce on her potato cakes.

‘Fair hair,’ corrected Hippolyta, but without much interest.

It seemed that only two in the whole community had even been temporarily marked by her presence: Gloucester, by what I assumed was a short affair, and Perdita, who resented it and then forgot it, except as a joke for later years.

Poor forgotten Doris. No regret so far for a life cut short, for the loss of whomever, whatever she was. Except for my regret, of course, and Neil’s, and Elaine’s and Theo’s, too—but ours was abstract and resulted more from the horror of her death than any real feelings for her. How could we regret the loss of someone we’d never known?

Dinner was a happy messy affair of hot potato cakes and leftover cold spaghetti. The leftover salad was thrown to the hens while Gloucester made a new one, slightly gritty.

The children spilled food and yelled questions into the conversation, but were otherwise surprisingly well mannered. The adults talked to Neil about apple trees, milk production and Utopias they knew in common; it seemed that most of the members of Black Stump had also wandered from Utopia to Utopia in their early years, before deciding to come home.

They did make some attempt to talk to me, but once they had established that I knew nothing about mastitis and that the only places I knew were Nearer To Heaven and Faith Hope and Charity (I had no intention of letting them know of my life in the City, and certainly not about the Proclamation) they mostly left me alone, apart from offers of more food.

‘…and considerable resistance to codlin moth.’ Neil concluded a short dissertation on his last three years of experiments. One of the older Black Stump members (Yorick, I think his name was…no, it couldn’t possibly have been Yorick) nodded.

‘We mostly juice the later apples,’ he said. ‘It’s easier than spraying.’

‘Yes, but that way you’re perpetuating the problem,’ said Neil eagerly.

‘Not if it’s not a problem,’ said Couldn’t Possibly Be Yorick. ‘The trouble with you youngsters is…’

I nudged Neil. ‘We’d better be getting back,’ I said.

There was no hope of getting back to Faith Hope and Charity before dark—the stars were now bright through the window. (It was still hard to get used to the views out the window matching each other. In the City one window might look out on a beach, another on Moon Base 3. But if we left now we’d at least be back by midnight.

Neil looked disappointed. Not Possibly Yorick said, ‘Why bother? There are plenty of beds.’

Neil raised his eyebrows at me.

I nodded. To be honest I was glad of the excuse not to go back to my too-quiet house, with the dark stains still on the sofa and the smell of blood that no amount of scrubbing seemed to remove—an image that made me grin faintly, for a reason I couldn’t possibly explain to the rest of the company.

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