Whatcha burning? he asks. Cracks his knuckles.
I blanch. It’s the goddam nosy neighbour. Always talking to me, at me. A guy who never, ever, takes a hint.
But then, why should he?
None of your business, I hiss. Or would like to. Nothing in particular, I actually say. Pretend to shrug my shoulders. In boredom. Pull the lid casually, nervously, over the firepit.
Give away nothing.
If I act as cold as hell, he might leave. But he’s already grabbed one of the rickety garden chairs. Sits and shoves his hands in his hoodie’s pockets. Tugs it round his torso.
Shitty winter weather, he says. It’s nice and warm here.
He doesn’t notice my breath shortening. I hope.
I remember my sister’s words: Be careful, everyone lives near a nark. Or worse: a DDD official.
He says, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.
What? I reply, too sharply. I lift the lid slightly, pummel the silicon twigs with the old iron poker I found in the basement and hope to Christ he can’t see the sheets of paper. I should have scrunched up those papers more tightly.
Ha, he says. Nothing important. He rubs his hands together. Okay – I just thought it’d be nice if you and I could…you know…go out for a drink. Or something.
I smile. Is that your favourite word? ‘Something’?
He looks hurt and that is not a good thing. Not today. I must try harder.
Perhaps, I say. Perhaps a drink might be nice.
He grins. Tonight? Cracks his knuckles again.
I grit my teeth and attempt to say as regretfully as possible, Nah, I can’t tonight. I’m busy. With work.
Oh, come on, love, he says. Everyone needs a break from work. And it’s a Saturday night.
The smoke from the brazier has thinned and its escaping air has cooled. But something is crackling powerfully within – sounds like a thousand old-fashioned bungers. Fuck. I make a decision and hold my breath and lift the lid again. The fire is dying. Through the flames, through the sticks, I see the glossy pages beneath, spitting and hissing. But not burning properly. I toss on more fake wood, cover it. The cast iron base begins to glow, the spitting is even more enraged.
As the guy – Lawrence, I suddenly remember his name – leans to take a stick of silicon his shirt rides up and under his hoodie I can see the steel badge attached to his belt. With the big letters. DDD.
Where do you work? he asks.
I lean on the brazier’s lid, holding it closed. Its iron handle burns my fingers. He taps the stick in his palm.
Oh, at the university.
You a lecturer?
No, no, I pretend to chuckle. I work in the library there. Just stack books, help students access the correct study guides, that sort of thing.
He’s jabbing the stick into the thin grass between his legs. So how come you’ve gotta work on a Saturday night?
I’ve got reports to write. You know how Administration is. I can’t be late.
He nods, peering at me as if reading my mind. I shift uneasily; more so when he glances at the bruise blackening my forearm.
You can always do your reports tomorrow.
Um, I’ve got to visit some relos. I could punch myself: now I’ll have to leave the house tomorrow and take the car somewhere long enough to back up that story. For a moment I fear he’ll ask about my family; he’s still scrutinising me in an unreadable way.
So, he says slowly. What are you burning?
I clutch the poker. Shrug again. Old newspapers, I say. Just trying to stay warm.
I thought you’d be warmer indoors, he says, twirling his moustache. It’s the same colour as his scrawny mullet.
I think it’s time I go inside. I jokingly salute him. Gotta get that work done.
Want me to watch the fire for you? You can’t just leave it like that.
No, I say too quickly.
I’ve been so careful. I made sure my back was to the cameras on the fence surrounding my yard, that the posters were folded and pressed to my chest under my pullover before I crammed them into the fake wood on the fire. The only life in the backyard – the only birdlife anywhere now – is a bin chicken, staring at me from the fence.
Perhaps they’ve inserted eyes – cameras – in those bin chickens. Wouldn’t surprise me.
I love playing with fire, Lawrence grins, and sticks out his open hand for the poker. I cling onto it, hold it sort of behind me, and madly try to think of something to say. I ask him what his job is. He says that he told me that before and for a librarian I’ve got a pretty bad memory but he’s still grinning as he states he works for the DDD. The Department of Dangerous Data.
Oh yeah? I say, as riveted as I can. Hoping – praying – he can’t hear the shiver in my voice.
We’re not all bad at DDD. He makes a joke pout.
I pretend the wind is blowing smoke in my face and shift so I’m blocking his view of the pit, lift the lid to check the destruction. If all is gone I’ll pour water from my metal bottle to douse the flames and end this night.
But the fire roars.
Paper fragments hurtle up and up into the twilight. I try to catch them but a shred swoops beyond me. The neighbour plucks it from the sky. It’s a scrap and he can read only a few words. But then he pushes past me. Knocks the smouldering faux wood away with his bare hands and grabs at the papers underneath. Nearly all the posters and fliers are twisted and burned – but my heart sinks as I notice some remain partly unscorched. He snatches one, slaps out the embers, then scans what’s left of its words.
I hold my breath. Turn and poke furiously at the grinning ash, make certain it’s disintegrating. Wonder if he can hear the thudding of my heart.
The silence, to use a cliché, lasts forever.
Then Lawrence says, Is this an ad for a protest march?
I turn around. His brow is furrowed like a road in a war zone.
Could be, I lie. An old one perhaps, from decades ago. When protests were legal. I found them in the roof but I didn’t read them. Must’ve been the previous owners. I thought it best to get rid of them.
Hasn’t stopped people from protesting, though, has it? He’s blowing on his burnt fingertips. I pray that damned shred of paper will dissolve. He takes a deep, disappointed breath and says quietly, This looks pretty recent.
He’s peering at it closely; trying to read the date, I know.
I slam the brazier’s lid, jump at the resounding bang. Still clutching the poker I step backwards. Hey, I say, I can always write that report tomorrow night. Why don’t we go and have a drink up the road? I smile as seductively as my guilty mouth will allow.
His eyes are bottomless pits. But he nods; and for a moment I think he’ll scrunch up the paper and we’ll head off to the pub and I’ll probably have to have sex with him but at this moment I don’t care. I really don’t care. I’ll do anything to avoid ending up in the Colony.
The Colony. I’ve heard the whispers, how merciless it is there. Its hunger; its silence.
He says, Where did you get that bruise?
My heel rams into the bottom step of my porch and I contemplate racing up the stairs and locking the door.
Um, I say, dragging my sweater down to my wrist, I was carrying a huge pile of copies of the Rules. I had to file them. And I bashed into a desk.
He nods again, steadily as if he really believes me, and I’m wondering if my bedroom is safe enough to fuck in – have I left any pamphlets lying about?
You know, he says, it looks a bit like a bruise from a baton. But it wouldn’t be that, would it? I can’t imagine a harmless suburban girl like you being a criminal. Then again…He holds up the charred splinter of paper, and reads in a quiet voice, DOWN WITH DDD! DOWN WITH THOUGHT CONTROL! DOWN WITH…He studies me. Down with burning books, I guess? he says. Or perhaps – down with banning words? His voice drops to a murmur. Yet here I am, reading a paragraph full of words no longer allowed.
No, no, I say, shaking my head, I have no idea what it says. Of course I’m not against burning illegal or immoral books. I’ve never even glanced at those old papers in the attic! They’re just leftovers from my grandparents, forgotten long ago. And it’s a crime to read them, you know. I’m babbling now. That’s why I’m burning them, I cry. To obey the law!
He cracks his knuckles, then rests his hand on his badge. You were there yesterday, weren’t you? Outside the Supreme Court? He whispers, You’re a Mask. One of the very few loudmouths who got away.
Again I’m almost spellbound by his black bottomless eyes.
C’mon! I squeal. Do I look like a thought-terrorist? I drop the poker, hold my hands wide.
He carefully folds the burnt page and inserts it in his hip pocket.
Please, I whisper. Let’s just go for that drink.
And for a split-second his face is uncertain. The black eyes flicker with what could be humanity. Trembling, I lean forward to take his hand.
Suddenly a belligerent clicking sound pulsates. All the cameras on the three fences have swivelled and are glaring at us.
At me.
The rest of that night is, well…I don’t want to remember. But I can’t stop the abrupt screaming whiteness of floodlights and alarms and the searing metal of cuffs around my hands and feet. Lawrence giving orders and the soldiers responding sharply, fearfully, as if he’s in total command.
The bin chicken screeching, its wings wide and grubby and prophetic.
The chilly boundless black belly of a convict van.
No trial. No contact with anyone.
And now?
Just the barren red sand of the Colony. And its thousands of convicts. We don’t speak to each other though. They’ve cut out our tongues.
I still taste the knife in my mouth. But nothing else.
Forever.
Strangely, I think of Lawrence. Sometimes late at night – perhaps in my dreams, definitely not my memory. I see him taking the poker from my hands, his fingers brushing mine, and before he pushes me to the ground there’s a ruefulness in his eyes I don’t think I’ve seen in anyone, ever.
Perhaps.
