The Disappearances (3 page)

A few minutes later, she came back into the bedroom, determined that today things would be better, today she wouldn’t rile him, wouldn’t bring him out in a jealous rage.

Their room was one of many in a low one-storey building that housed nearly a hundred people, each given space according to their needs. Their room had space for their bed, a chair, a desk and a bookshelf. Down the corridor was the shower room that they shared with the other couples. Outside was a quadrangle of grass that anyone in the building could use; around it were dedicated allotments where personal food could be grown to supplement the weekly camp provision but some were allocated to the planting of flowers because, as Benjamin always liked to say, feeding the soul was as important as feeding the belly.

‘What are you working on today?’ she asked.

‘I’m going to help plough one of the far fields,’ Raffy yawned, ‘although my shoulders are killing me.’ Evie turned and appraised Raffy’s shoulders: broad, rippled, so different from how they looked just a year ago. It was as though here, in the Settlement, Raffy had suddenly become a man. He was taller, too, but his sudden broadness was what surprised her the most. He suited it. Suited being here, his face tanned by the sun, framed by his unruly, tousled hair that he refused to keep short. He suited working hard, Evie found herself thinking, suited laughing with the other builders, sharing jokes. He came back every evening with a spring in his step, even as he collapsed on the bed in exhaustion.

It was what she’d dreamt about when they’d lived in the City, when even talking to each other was a terrible crime. Here, she and Raffy could walk down the road hand in hand with no one to report them, no one to stare at them, no one to tell them how wicked they were.

And no Lucas.

Evie caught her breath, as she always did when she thought of Lucas, as the image of his face flooded her mind.

‘Right, time to get up,’ Raffy said, putting his tea down then leaning in to kiss her. He framed her face in his hands, kissed her tenderly on the lips, then pushed his fingers into her hair, pulling her towards him. Evie loved his hands, nutmeg brown from the sun, full of strength yet so tender with her.

She closed her eyes briefly, allowed herself to enjoy the moment, then reluctantly opened them again to look at the clock on her bedside table. Nearly 5 a.m. As work in the Settlement started on the dot at 6 a.m., breakfast would be served shortly in the communal dining areas, one for each Area. And if you got there later than 5.40 a.m., there wasn’t much point, they’d discovered, as all the good food had already gone.

‘Today’s going to be a good day,’ Raffy said suddenly, jumping out of bed and grabbing a towel. ‘And not just because of the fitting. Everything’s good, Evie. The new field could produce enough food for a month if we do it well. Simon’s going to show me.’

Evie smiled. Simon was one of the established farmers; he had taken Raffy under his wing and under his tutelage Raffy had blossomed. He’d told her, a few weeks ago, that for once in his life he felt like he was achieving something, that he was part of something, that his life actually had a point to it.

‘They really trust you to plough a whole field?’ Evie teased.

Raffy flicked her around the ankles with his towel. ‘Watch what you say,’ he said, grinning. ‘People respect farmers around here.’

Evie looked at him thoughtfully. That’s what it was, she realised suddenly. That’s why he was so happy here. For the first time in his life, Raffy had earned the respect of others. For the first time in his life he could walk tall. And this tall farmer loved her. Had always loved her.

As he got to the door she called out to him. ‘Wait.’

‘What?’ Raffy asked, turning just as Evie put her arms around him. Her future. The only one that mattered. Once they were married, he would stop being so jealous; he would know that he had her. And things would be good. They would be completely good.

‘I love you,’ she said. ‘That’s all.’

‘And I love you,’ Raffy said as he leant down and kissed her again, tenderly, holding her tight against him. ‘More than you could possibly know.’ Then he smiled, and wandered out of the room.

It was early morning. Gabby noticed that the street she was walking down, one of the larger streets in the City, was almost empty and walked a little faster. She was five or so minutes late for work, which wasn’t good, but nor was it the end of the world. Not any more. Still, ten minutes might be pushing it. Ten minutes and she might be forced to work into her lunch break.

Lunch break was one of the improvements since the System had been deactivated. Or ‘taken away’ as her parents liked to put it, fear in their eyes, resentment in their voices. Her parents didn’t like Lucas, the City’s new leader. They believed that what he was doing would bring devastation and evil back within the City walls. But that was mainly because her parents could no longer use the System as a threat; at least that seemed to be the thing that vexed them most. They couldn’t tell her what time to get back home every night any more; couldn’t insist that she sit with them after supper listening to her father give them both a lecture on the importance of contemplation or something else utterly boring. Now she could go and meet her friends on the green after work; now she could choose who she was going to marry, choose everything.

Although, she reminded herself, as she broke into a light jog, there were still rules about getting to work on time. And anyway, she wasn’t ready to make any of the big choices yet. She couldn’t imagine getting married, having a house, being all serious like her parents. Mainly she just wanted to play ball on the green, feel the exhilaration of running for a catch, the thrill of winning, the pain of losing. Until the System had been deactivated, the only winning or losing in the City was determined by the System and involved labels: an upward movement meant you won, a downward movement meant you lost. But the System was no game; it determined everything: where you worked, who you married, who you associated with. Whether you won or lost, things could still turn against you. Whether you won or lost, you had no control.

Then again, back then no one disappeared either.

Gabby stopped for a second, caught her breath, looked around. Was someone watching her? Following her? Then she shook herself. Of course they weren’t.

What Clara, her best friend, had told her was probably made up anyway. There weren’t any Informers in the City. The Disappearances weren’t what Clara had said they were. There would be some other explanation. There had to be. Clara’s terror had seemed genuine; Gabby had noticed how her hands were shaking as she told her the story, had seen the fear in her eyes. But Clara got scared easily; she believed what people told her. And Gabby refused to believe that she would disappear just because Clara had told her about the people in the hospital. Otherwise, Clara herself would have disappeared.

The truth was that Gabby was as scared about the Disappearances as everyone else, but she refused to let on, refused to let them cower her. Because that’s how things had been with the System: people afraid all the time, not going out after dark, worrying about what lay ahead. There was something terrible happening, of that she had no doubt, but she wasn’t going to let it affect her. She wasn’t going to let things go back to how they were. She’d rather die.

Maybe not die, she corrected herself. But she certainly wasn’t going to run scared from the Disappearances like everyone else. She was just beginning to see her life as something worthwhile, something worth waking up in the morning for.

Until the change, there hadn’t been any sport in the City, not openly anyway. There hadn’t been any dancing, either, any music, any real conversation. People had been too scared, had limited themselves to furtive whispers followed by the clenching fear that confidences would be betrayed, that the System had heard, somehow. Now it was common to see people clustered on street corners arguing about things; now people were invited round to other people’s houses for supper; now old guitars and accordions had been dug out from wherever they’d been hidden and music could be heard everywhere once work was done for the day.

Gabby’s parents saw it as the beginning of the end; Gabby saw it as a miracle.

She increased her speed; the pottery workshop where she worked was just a minute away now. She wondered if Clara was already there; they had both been up late last night, which was why Gabby was late now, why she had slept in, in spite of her mother’s attempts to rouse her.

So when Clara had told her about the shadowy strangers in the hospital, her voice trembling as she spoke, Gabby had listened, but only partially; had reassured Clara but not in any meaningful way. Because when she’d begged Clara to tell her what she knew, Gabby had hoped and expected to hear that the Disappearances were something else completely, that the others had run away, found something more exciting, somewhere better. So she had listened to Clara only half-heartedly, had told herself that probably Clara was making it up, that it couldn’t be true because … Because …

It was only as she turned the corner that she noticed the shadow under her feet. Only as the workshop came into view that she felt her heart start to thud in her chest, felt her legs speed up. The Informers. Clara had told her that they knew everything, that they had tracked down everyone who knew, everyone who had seen them. Everyone except Clara.

It couldn’t be true. And yet, as she heard the footsteps speed up behind her, Gabby felt a cold veil of terror fall over her. Because she knew now without a doubt that she was being followed. Because through the fug of fear, she realised that what Clara had told her was true. Because suddenly she knew that she was running for her life.

What she needed to do, Evie thought to herself as she walked to work, was to just stop thinking about things so much. She had always thought too much, always questioned things too much. Maybe she should just learn to accept what was in front of her; maybe then she would actually be happy.

She and Raffy were happy here, there was no question of that. And it wasn’t like she wanted to marry anyone else. The truth was that marrying Raffy made total sense. And the last thing she wanted to do was mess things up, to jeopardise anything.

The truth was, Raffy and Evie had found that, in spite of the Settlement being a warm, open and welcoming place, it hadn’t been that simple to be accepted into it and the last thing she wanted to do was set them back again. Raffy and Evie had been interviewed, questioned at length; they had met various groups of people, had undergone a trial period, had been put up before the camp council for approval. As Benjamin had said, the township belonged to the people who lived in it; they alone could decide who joined them. And anyone who did join them had to prove their worth, had to show that they were committed, that they could fit in.

And so that’s just what they’d done. Raffy had got work on one of the many farms that kept the Settlement’s community fed; Evie had started in the kitchens, then moved to the fabric workshops where her rusty sewing skills were welcomed. And Raffy’s delight in the place soon rubbed off on her, too. Whereas in the City she’d loathed sewing, had wanted to do something as different as possible from the woman who had posed as her mother, here she found herself feeling grateful that there was something she could do well; here she brushed away the pricked fingers that plagued her, because they didn’t matter, because in a strange way she was almost proud of them. Proud of her work, of being part of a community that was as different from the City as it was possible to be.

And Benjamin had watched them, too; every so often one of them would look up to see him watching them, the whites of his eyes shining against his ebony skin; when he realised that he had been seen, he would give a half-smile, a little wave, and would walk on, his long robes flapping at his ankles, robes that were in no way a uniform, and yet were emulated by most of the men and women on the Settlement – long flowing clothes and long flowing hair that framed open, happy faces as they worked, talked, laughed and ate.

People didn’t talk much about the past at the Settlement, which suited Evie and Raffy down to the ground. It was like Benjamin had said, people here were building a new life, a new future. The past was another place, the past could not be changed. The citizens of the Settlement recognised this. They had suffered during the Horrors, just as everyone had suffered, just as those who had initiated the Horrors had intended. But the Settlement’s people had survived, and with survival came responsibility. A responsibility to live, to grow, to learn, to draw a line and move on.

And that was what had convinced Evie that this wasn’t just somewhere they could survive, but was somewhere they could live. In the City, they talked about the Horrors all the time, about the evil that had nearly destroyed the world. In the City, everything and everyone was analysed, labelled, ranked, including the people. Here in the Settlement, people just got on with their lives, looking to the future, looking for the good in people instead of fearing the evil. Here, music was always in the air; people playing guitars, singing, humming as they worked. Here books were shared and discussed openly; here different opinions were welcomed and considered. Here, asking questions was encouraged, not frowned upon. Here, you could talk to whoever you wanted, whenever you wanted to.

At least that was the idea.

‘Hey, Evie!’

Evie turned to see Neil walking towards her. Neil was one of the Settlement’s teachers. Teaching was considered the highest calling in the Settlement and everyone was encouraged to learn as much as they could. There were regular art classes, book groups, pottery, woodwork, engineering and cookery classes, as well as classes in reading, writing and arithmetic for those whose education had been limited to a few sporadic lessons given by whoever was available, and for those who hadn’t even got that far.

‘Neil!’ Evie’s eyes lit up and she rushed towards him eagerly. Neil, who was aged somewhere in his fifties, had arrived at the Settlement ten years before, having lived almost has a hermit since the end of the Horrors. Wearing nothing but rags and with hair down to his waist, he had – according to the stories Evie had been told – been close to starvation; for several weeks it was touch and go whether he would survive. But slowly he was brought back to health and with each week his nurses had learnt more about him, discovered that this emaciated man in front of them had been a leading academic before the Horrors, had won prizes, travelled the world. He was a sailor, a pianist, had invented a device used in fishing that prevented environmental damage and had given the proceeds – many millions of pounds – to charity. Evie had been told all this, but it didn’t mean much to her; she found talk of the old days confusing and strange. But what she loved about Neil was the excitement on his face when he was talking about a book or concept; the way his eyes danced when one of his pupils grasped something important.