This Other Eden (27 page)

The
banging.

Flossie drank the rest of
her wine and tried to adjust. She stood, she sat, she stuck an old film into
the entertainment centre. She could not settle, however, and the moments crept
by. Without any light changes she had only the clock to tell her the time and
she was sure it was slow. She would look up at it, convinced that an hour had
passed, to discover that only five minutes had gone by. Then only one minute.
At this rate she felt it would not be long before time would stop altogether and
then she would never get out. What if time started to go backwards? she asked
herself. Would that mean that she could get out before she got in? Or would it
only be going backwards in her world? Would the world outside carry on without
her? These were the thoughts of a woman all alone in the universe with only
half a bottle of wine for company. They were big thoughts but they did not take
long to think. Scarcely any time at all seemed to have passed.

The
clock was getting slower. The silence was oppressive. Afters three or four
hours, Flossie began to wish that she had not turned on the oxygen.

Then
the banging started.

Flossie
nearly jumped out of her skin. The banging was certainly worse than the
silence. She should have been expecting it, of course, but somehow it had
slipped her mind. There could be no doubt that this was the noise of those
terrified, dying people trapped outside. Every Claustrosphere brochure warned
of this development. It was obvious that there would be those who either did
not have access to a ‘Sphere, or who got caught too far away from home and,
ignoring the municipals, had tried to make it back. These were the people who
were now hammering in terror upon Flossie’s door. But she could not open it.
The stern warning given out by the police and the Claustrosphere company alike
was that, once you had closed your BioLock, under no circumstances should you
open it again. If the poisons which were killing the desperate souls on the
outside should once upset the delicate eco-balance on the inside, then no one
would survive.

After
about twenty minutes, Flossie could hardly stand it.

‘Go
away,’ she shouted. ‘I can’t open it! You’re not supposed to! I can’t.’

But she
knew they could not hear her. The sound of a voice would not travel through the
dome. The banging continued.

Flossie
could not bear to imagine the scene which was being played out in her own
little back garden. Choking, dying people, gasping their last on her astroturf.
It hardly seemed possible. Perhaps there were children? Some of the bangs
seemed less hard than others. This thought was too much for Flossie, and she
resolved to open the lock. She could not live with herself for a year,
imagining the skeletons of tiny children clawing at her door outside. The
little Eden Three which she and Nathan had bought could support four people,
and she was only one. That was not right. Flossie felt that she must try and
share, whatever the risk. Of course, the people outside might be a gang of
adults, in which case she would perhaps die. She had no weapon and if a
desperate crowd wished to eject her then there would not be much she could do
about it. None the less, she resolved to open the door. She could not in all
conscience take up four Claustrosphere places whilst people, possibly children,
died outside.

BioSting.

As Flossie opened the door
of her BioLock, the police officers outside were just fixing a charge of
dynamite with which to blow it open. Claustrospheres were extremely tough, but
if you had the right explosives, you could get into them.

‘Good
afternoon, Mrs Hoddy,’ said the head constable. ‘Glad you opened up. You’re not
supposed to, you know, but it did save us ruining your Claustrosphere.’

What
had happened made the news worldwide. It was a bio-sting. A beautifully
conceived and executed crime. Great Pew was a very wealthy village. A couple of
rock stars had built studios in the surrounding manor houses and all the
residents were London media people. The place simply dripped with money. It was
also very self-contained. There was only one road in and out, meaning that a
simple diversion sign ensured privacy for at least a little while.

The
moment the residents of the village had been hurried into their
Claustrospheres, the thieves had removed their army uniforms, switched off the
radio jammer that they had used to intrude on the local air waves and robbed
all the houses. They were in and out in under an hour; it took another two for
anybody to notice anything amiss and it was mid-afternoon before the police
began to blast people out of their ‘Spheres.

‘What a
beautiful idea,’ said Judy to himself when he heard about it later. ‘I’m amazed
that nobody thought of it before.’

Chapter
Seventeen

The difference between

Virtual Reality and

actual reality

Delegation
.

Plastic Tolstoy made at
least a hundred major decisions an hour. His colossal empire required a
never-ending succession of split-second judgements. When he moved he had to
move fast, and he was always moving. This required delegation. Tolstoy was
constantly giving orders. He was a general with a whole army of foot soldiers
who scurried about the world, day and night, doing his will. He had development
people, money people, management people, marketing people and he was in virtual
constant communication with all of them. Just occasionally, though, Plastic
Tolstoy put them all on hold and gave orders to his killing people.

Boring
door knockers.

The process of
prevarication began anew. While Flossie was wandering around her
Claustrosphere, Nathan was wandering around the nice little house off Sunset
that Plastic Tolstoy had rented for him. He sat down at his computer console.
He got up again. He walked around. Had a cup of coffee, played with himself. He
flicked through the news input channels. Jurgen Thor had fully recovered from
the explosions at the Euro parliament. Hitler’s lawyers had pulled off a plea
bargain whereby he admitted to the lesser offence of using intolerant and
inflammatory language, and the court agreed to drop the six million murder
charges. He got a hundred hours’ community service.

Eventually
Nathan wrote something.

‘Scene
one.’

It was
a start.

Then
the prevarication began again. What style of computer font to employ? What type
size? Word processing had increased the opportunities for writer prevarication
considerably. Nathan was still playing around with his computer mouse fifteen
minutes later, when the doorbell rang. He jumped up in delight. Here was a
genuine diversion. Nathan had no idea who it might be, for he had told no one
of his new whereabouts except Max, and of course Flossie in England, but it
didn’t matter. Anyone would do to get him away from his computer.

The
world is full of quite awesomely boring people who knock on doors. Often they
are religious zealots, sometimes political representatives, occasionally market
researchers. Normally, the reaction that these sad door knockers provoke is
one of brusque dismissal. Most people make it quite clear that they resent the
intrusion on their privacy and that they neither wish to be told what to think,
nor asked what they think. Indeed, so thankless is the lot of the average
boring door knocker that it is a mystery how they keep going. The truth, of
course, is that every job, even door knocking, has its occasional rewards.
Every now and then, not often, very rarely, in fact, but sometimes, the boring
door knocker knocks on the door of somebody who is pleased to see them.
Somebody who, on being asked the question ‘Where will you be spending
eternity?’ will actually be prepared to give the matter some thought. Somebody
who does not shout, ‘Rover Kill!!!’ when faced with the announcement ‘Hi, we’re
talking with people today about faith’. Somebody who is actually prepared to
express an interest in current proposals to turn the high street into a one-way
system and pedestrianise the north end. It is these seemingly generous, open-spirited
souls who keep the boring door knockers going, for in them exists the great
door knocker’s illusion. The illusion that somebody out there appreciates them.
Appreciates the fact that they have chosen to devote their lives to irritating
other people with their fatuous prejudices or public-spirited obsessions. Alas,
it is only an illusion. For the people who encourage them do so out of purely
selfish reasons. For they are writers merely seeking further justification to
prevaricate. Desperate people, every one, who would welcome a burglar into
their homes as a happy diversion from having to sit down and do some work.

Welcome
visitor.

Nathan was in for a
pleasant surprise, for the person at the door was Max, which meant that he
could put away the idea of work for the rest of the evening.

‘I
don’t know, I just thought I’d come and say hi,’ Max said, walking in. ‘I know
you’re working so I won’t stay above a minute,’ he added, putting two six-packs
of beer and a litre of Jack Daniels on the coffee table.

‘No,
that’s fine, stay as long as you like,’ said Nathan eagerly. The arrival of a
superstar definitely absolved him of all obligation to write. Particularly a
superstar who was going to star in the film he was supposed to be working on.

‘Nathan,’
said Max, cracking open the beer and the rye, ‘I’ve never felt like this
before.’

Max had
been thinking about Rosalie. He just could not get the girl off his mind.
Nathan was the only person he knew who had met her (unless you counted Tolstoy)
so Max naturally gravitated towards him. Besides, Nathan too was unhappy in
love, he understood how obsessive it was.

‘I
tried to get a lawyer in Dublin to send her a message and it turned out that
she’d escaped. Can you believe that? Already! What a woman. I just
have
to
see her again.’

‘Even
if you knew where she was, she doesn’t want to see you. She said so.’

‘Girls
say stupid things. All I have to do is find a really good reason to speak to
her again. I need something to get back in her confidence. Like, if I could do
something for her, you know? Like, if I could steal the plans to a nuclear
plant or something and place them at her feet.’

‘They
have all that stuff already, Max,’ Nathan said sympathetically. ‘That’s part
of Mother Earth’s mystery, they’re so well-informed. I don’t think there’s much
you can offer in the green stakes that would impress a girl like Rosalie.’

‘How
about money? Supposing I got word to her that I wanted to fund all her bombs
and shit?’

‘They
have money too,’ said Nathan. ‘You know that. Actually, it’s the funding thing
that our movie’s going to be about.’

There
was an evangelical light in Nathan’s eyes which Max had seen in the eyes of
writers before. It meant that they were about to explain their idea.

‘Nathan,
I don’t want to hear your movie idea right now. Please don’t tell me about your
idea.’

‘All
right,’ said Nathan.

But he
could not be stopped. Despite Max’s protests and efforts to get the
conversation back on to the subject of Rosalie, Nathan explained his idea. It
was understandable really, he was far from over the excitement of being
green-lighted by Plastic Tolstoy himself. When he had finished, Max could not
help but nod with approval.

‘It’s
neat,’ he said. ‘And you say Tolstoy liked it?’

‘Well,
at first I thought, “Hello, it’s turkey time.” The room seemed to simply reek
of Brussels sprouts and gravy. Tolstoy went all thoughtful and didn’t say a
thing, which is a bit rare for him, you must admit. But it turned out he was
just having a mull, because he’s told me to go ahead and write it.’

‘A full
green light?’

‘Absolutely,
so I’m holed up here like a monk until it’s done. No going out, no parties.
I’ve only told you and Flossie I’m even here.

At the
mention of Flossie, Nathan’s face fell. He remembered that he had forgotten to
remember that he was unhappy.

Max
could see what had happened and tried to cheer him up.

‘Hey,
looks like we’re going to make a Tolstoy picture together, partner,’ he said
and they chinked glasses and drank. Then they did it again, and again, and for
a moment they were both happy. Then the little devils that now lived inside
both their stomachs reminded them both that to be happy when you are unhappy is
a contradiction in terms.

They both
sank back into love sadness and poured more drinks.