The Paper Eater

LIBERTY DAY 12 P.M.

They’re calling it the dawn of a new era, but the thought brings no comfort to Tiffany, Gwynneth and Geoff. The Sea Hero is now sliding its way up the estuary – and Harvey with it.

Gwynneth, who not long ago gave birth to the baby Howard – a fretful, colicky lad, hard to settle, quick to posset his lunch – tightens the belt of her dressing-gown around her birth-whacked midriff and chews on a fingernail. Nearby, balled up in an armchair, Tiffany feeds herself popcorn coated in spray-on caramel. Both women have spent the morning watching the TV, their stomachs twisted in knots. Geoff, stress-management consultant and new dad, won’t even look; it threatens his blood pressure. He sits with his feet in a basin of warm water, slices of organic Kenyan cucumber over his eyes, listening to whale music on headphones and secretly wishing he’d never met the Kidd family. Look what it’s all led to!

For all of them, today sees the culmination of a year of what Geoff has christened pure unadulterated hell. Ever since the chilling documentary about the Hoggs was screened, the sirens have been wailing their morbid soprano day and night, deepening the siege mentality in the family home. The new baby can’t be blamed for sensing that something is horribly awry in the world he has entered – and screaming accordingly, both day and night. Fear stalks the beleaguered little family, raises their hackles, making them hiss and snarl at one another like beasts at bay. The knowledge that they share is a burden too awful for one small family to bear.

As the Sea Hero sails towards Atlantica on their TV screen, Gwynneth plunges her head into her hands and groans. Not for the first time she wonders if she should check herself into some kind of clinic, or ring the Hotline and blab the whole thing. Oh, she was happy for Tiffany to bust Harvey and hand the Hoggs to Liberty – as anyone in her position would have been! But how could she have guessed they’d reappear in this ugly, frightening way? When they don’t even exist in real life?

Or do they? She’s no longer certain. They’ve come to seem so – well, oh, just so horribly real! She’s even seen them on television! Heard interviews with their victims! Her friends have told her about the swathe of corruption that Cameron’s been spreading, vandalising street signs with his graffiti’d insignia. And there’s no avoiding the destruction wreaked by Sid, who’s been cutting the perimeter fence of the purity zone every night. There’s a rumour going round that Rick’s behind some of the broken marriages – Dr Carney’s, for example, that seemed made of rock.

– It’s all your fault! she blurts at Tiffany. If it wasn’t for you –

Tiffany pauses over her popcorn.

– But I didn’t – I mean how could I –

She sighs and stops. It’s pointless. What is there to say? Over the months, she has tried to reassure her family that, by delivering Harvey to Liberty when she did, she has gained them all immunity. But her sudden unexpected redundancy tells another story.

– The fact is, spits Gwynneth, that we know the Hoggs aren’t real people, and nobody else does!

– Shhh! hisses Tiffany, diving a hand deep into the popcorn tub, her face flushing with fear. It’s not safe to talk! Even to each other!

Picking up the bad familial vibes, baby Howard begins to cry.

– I’m scared, groans Tiffany, ignoring the infant’s wail. I don’t want to do it! Her eyes blur at the thought of this afternoon. She is shaking with fright.

Two weeks ago, Liberty came to the door. There were two plain-clothes associates, a man and a woman. When she saw the Liberty IDs flashed at her, Tiffany’s heart bucked painfully. There was another one waiting outside in a car with Groke number-plates. He was dark and powerful-looking. Security, probably. He’d have a gun. His eyes swivelled expertly about the street.

– May we come in? the tall man had said, stepping in.

– Won’t take a minute, said the woman, following.

While the blond man did the talking, the woman did the poking around. It was frightening. They’d felt so alone, so isolated. Tiffany had been so scared she’d crammed her face with cold alphabet pasta all the way through the meeting. Howard cried incessantly. Gwynneth shivered and whimpered. Geoff just did breathing exercises, trying to keep his pulse-rate down.

– There’s heart failure runs in my family, Geoff trembled, when the Liberty man finished explaining the terrifying bottom line. The Liberty man’s mouth had tweaked upwards in response, as though he thought heart failure was funny. But in the end what choice did they have, once the smooth young associate had graphically described what would happen if they didn’t co-operate? With sinking hearts, Tiffany, Gwynneth and Geoff agreed to do what Liberty said.

– You’ve made the right choice, said the Liberty woman as the quaking Tiffany took the red biro she was handed. And scared witless, wrote as dictated.

Two weeks ago. Two awful, scary weeks. Nearer and nearer comes the ship. And now it has docked.

– I can’t do it, whimpers Tiffany.

– There’s no choice, snaps Gwynneth, silencing Howard with a dummy.

And there isn’t. She’s committed.

A buzz at the door: that will be the car now.