The Paper Eater

PEOPLE-WORK

– Ever since I was busted, I’ve been having dreams about them, Harvey Kidd sighed, when he’d glugged down his Frooto and wiped his mouth on his shirt-sleeve. He hadn’t even looked at the first question yet. – They’re talking to me, telling me to stay cool, and everything’ll be all right. But it won’t be, will it? This dream I had, well, Mum said if I just keep my mouth shut, don’t say anything, and –

He stopped as suddenly as he’d started, and Hannah felt the moment come to a standstill between them. The air seemed to shimmer. Without warning, Hannah felt a blush rise and spread. This people-work was getting to her. Bothering her. Stirring things up that –

– I used to live near the purification zone in South District, Harvey said mournfully. Gravelle Road.

Hannah started. Remembered her brief. Cleared her throat.

– I thought we might begin with Gloria Hogg, she said.

– D’you know South District at all? he said, as though he hadn’t heard.

Denial, Hannah typed quickly into the laptop.

– Gravelle Road’s near Tarre Street, he was saying. Did you know that the crater’s two kilometres deep? He sounded pleased to be the owner of such information. Displacement thinking, she typed. Apparent customer pride.

– If we turn to the questionnaire, she began tentatively.

– Sod your questionnaire! he shouted at her, all energy again. I’m not filling in a sodding questionnaire!

She flinched, thought of reaching for the buzzer under the desk. Then stopped herself. She was only to call the guard if he got violent.

She remembered the handwriting on the disc box. Retarded development was the phrase Wesley Pike had used. She managed to calm him down, somehow. Assured him it was a formality, that it wouldn’t take long, that once it was over –

– What? he asked. Once it’s over, what?

– Then we’ll no longer require your co-operation, she mustered. She had an odd urge to touch him. It might calm him down. You did that with animals, didn’t you. You stroked them.

– I’ll still go to prison?

– You’ve committed a series of crimes, she sighed. I’d be very surprised if you didn’t have to undergo some form of corrective adjustment.

She hadn’t a clue, to be honest. Emotional immaturity, she wrote.

She wondered how often married people had sex. Twice a week, she’d read somewhere. That seemed like a lot. He was separated, according to the file. She wondered if he had a girlfriend.

– I chose Libertycare, you know, he said suddenly, indignantly, as though he’d just remembered. I chose them twice.

– So did over 95 per cent of the population, said Hannah. You’d be unusual if you hadn’t. But we didn’t just choose its shopping malls, did we? We chose its security system too. We opted for it as a package. You can’t just pull out of part of it. It’s against the customer charter.

While Harvey Kidd was mumbling and grumbling over the first page of the questionnaire about Gloria, Hannah unrolled a large photo-sheet from under the desk, depicting a blow-up of Gloria Hogg’s face, printed off from disc, and pinned it to the wall to his left. He didn’t look up; he was too engrossed.

More than ever, the notion that this blonde, blue-eyed, glamorous and absurdly young woman could even for a moment be taken for the mother of this balding, late-fortyish man seemed absurd, laughable.

Her mind flitted briefly to an image of her own mother, her narrow papaya face puckered into a moue of disappointment, the high whine of her voice. Tilda had never seemed young.

Harvey was grunting again, and chewing at his pen; he finally seemed to be concentrating on the questionnaire. Hannah didn’t move. She didn’t want to distract him. But he must have sensed something, because suddenly he looked up and saw Gloria.

– Mum! he gasped, his whole face creasing into a huge child’s smile.

Hannah recoiled, and turned her face away from the glare of it. But then her eyes crept back to watch. So this is what love looks like, she thought. And a sudden pain jabbed at her ribcage. Harvey Kidd seemed mesmerised by the sight of this mother-figure.

– I suppose, she ventured after making some quick notes on his reaction, that you never thought to age her a bit? To make her look, er –

– Look what? he said sharply. Anger boiling up again.

– Er, just I mean, well, older.

– Older? Why would I do that?

– Well, said Hannah, treading carefully. Usually, in normal life, a mother tends to be older than her son. So I just thought –

– You just thought! he spat. You didn’t think at all! Not about her feelings, anyway! Not about what she’d want! Mum’s always cared about her appearance. She wouldn’t thank me for giving her grey hair and wrinkles, would she?

Hannah blushed beetroot.

And so it continued. A nightmarish day, the worst day she could remember in years. Stuck in a room with a man who had spent most of his adult life fetishising an imaginary family, and was now ranting about his customer rights. Back in her own office, she felt flustered, twitchy, slightly tearful. People-work, Pike had said. It’ll stretch you… Don’t worry. He won’t rape you.

No, but he –

Unsettled her. Completely. He broke all the rules. Wouldn’t stick to the questions, wouldn’t give proper answers, insisted on talking instead of filling in the forms, rambling off in his fantasy world, even telling her his mum’s recipe for rhubarb soufflé. He was worrying about them constantly, he told her, since they’d been stolen from him. That was the word he used. Stolen. Since you stole them. And once, Since they were kidnapped. Kidnapped?! He was clearly deranged. And those terrible, unprocessed feelings – anger, rage, remorse, self-pity – they leaked out of him, spilling all over the floor of the interview room. She could imagine that a toddler might act like this, if poorly parented. She didn’t know any young children, but she had seen them in the crèche once, on the fourth floor. When their parents dropped them off for the day, some of them behaved like that, clinging on to their mothers’ legs theatrically, hurling their little lunch boxes at the wall. She felt a stab of resentment towards Pike and the Boss for putting her in a situation she wasn’t equipped to deal with. A thing works out on paper, but not in the flesh, sometimes. More than ever, she felt the truth of Dr Crabbe’s diagnosis. He may have been a fraud. But he’d spotted that she was blocked.

– Irreversibly, he’d told her mother.

And that’s how it felt.

The moment when he’d wept was the worst. She’d unrolled the picture of Lola, and stuck her on the wall next to the others. Lola was a scorchingly attractive girl, far too dangerous and glamorous to exist in real life, of course – but that seemed to come with the psychopathological territory. Hannah flushed, privately comparing Lola’s chocolate-nippled breasts to her own small, discreet pair, neatly locked away inside a sensible bra. She knew it was absurd, but the sight of Lola made her feel inadequate. A bad feeling prickled inside her, somewhere low down.

Harvey had looked at Lola’s image in silence for a moment. Then suddenly, with no warning, he’d let out a low groan, stood up, and walked to the window. He stood there for a long time, staring out, his back shaking, and small hiccups emerging. It took a while for Hannah to realise that he must be sobbing, because she had never seen a man cry before, except occasionally, in films. But this was real life. It was revolting. When he turned back, his face was flushed and despairing, streaked. Hannah had recorded his reaction dutifully on her laptop. Emotional arousal, stimulated by visual image of female icon, Lola Hogg.

Hannah thought it was probably the most awkward, repellent, and embarrassing thing she had ever seen.

The other excruciating thing was that it made her wildly, miserably jealous.

He’d probably guessed that she was a virgin. It was probably written all over her. He’d been married, hadn’t he. He’d had his fantasy life, he knew what was what. He’d probably slept with hundreds of women. He’d laugh, if he knew how inexperienced she was. He probably thought she was frigid and stuck-up.

He’d have a girlfriend already, anyway. He’d –

God, what was she thinking?

She grabbed some bubble-wrap and began popping.

The splash of his emotions. The unruliness of his thoughts. And the uncomfortable things he stirred up in her, like mud in a pond. It was as she was reaching for her inhaler that her eyes now fell on the envelope. It was still there on the table where Leo had left it. She felt something plummet down. In all the turmoil aroused by Harvey Kidd, she’d forgotten Leo. Now she stared at it. A plain brown rectangle. No writing. Sealed. Thin enough to rip. Rip and chuck in the bin. Or take to the shredder, watch it die. She should report Leo. Any employee who suspects a co-worker of a mental instability or physical illness which might impair their judgement, must immediately notify their line-manager. She should tell Wesley Pike. Leo would be sent off for a while – to Groke, or Mohawk, for some Libertycare R and R, and return –

Refreshed, was the euphemism.

But she hesitated. Pike was with a group of field associates, conducting a People Lab briefing. He’d be gone for another few days.

Hannah was still staring blankly at Leo’s envelope when the phone rang.

– It’s me, warbled a weak voice.

Hannah reached for the envelope and smoothed it on the desk in front of her.

– They’ve given way, now, Tilda announced. Handed in their notice.

– What have?

– My knees, sighed Tilda. I was getting out of the buggy, and they just went. Kerpoom. Tilda paused, and Hannah searched her mind for words. None came. – I could’ve had a nasty accident, continued Tilda. The ground’s all charged up. There’s this alga-type slime growing on it. A mould. It gets triggered by the electrons. There was a scientist on, saying so. He says it’s completely harmless and it’s nothing to do with the waste project, he even licked some. And there’s this new type of lightning, the Met Office says it’s ever so rare. Not zigzag, like fork, and not sheet either. Sort of whirlpool-shaped. Gorgeous, we’re all snapping away, and my neighbour, he’s doing this thing with his video camera, keeping it running twenty-four hours, and then he’s going to edit it and do us a sort of ‘best of’, set to music, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. But it seems to trigger the alga. I could have slipped. Broken a bone, even, that happens a lot if you’re elderly, especially the ladies, they get osteoporosis.

She’s been watching the Health Channel again, thought Hannah. She gave a small uh-huh? to show that she was listening. Anything longer only encouraged her mother.

– I called the Customer Hotline but the lines are jammed, Ma said. Everyone complaining about the slime, and the gas being too strong. It’s difficult to breathe, with all that aromatherapy. Tilda sighed, a weary gust. – The op’s next week. Keyhole, as per usual. They’re looking into replacing them both. Heigh ho! Sometimes my whole life feels like one long hospital corridor. I can see it stretching out before me. Pale-green walls. And the smell of ointment.

Her voice wobbled. Hannah winced. Hannah found herself reaching for the envelope, and a pen. And beginning to write.

– So, said Tilda. Can you come and stay?

Hannah had a sudden sharp picture in her mind of Ma sitting there in the lilac apartment with the half-finished flower arrangements sprouting kinked wire. Small and frail, clutching the telephone receiver in both hands, her feet on the footstool. And on the shelf opposite, the hologram of Hannah’s child self, with Marilyn and the gorgon. She and Ma seemed to be stuck in a groove that spiralled forever downward. If they were a proper family, if she had had a father, and brothers and sisters, and uncles and aunts and grandparents…

– Well? Can you? Can you get away?

No. It would just be a bigger vortex. Hannah looked at the envelope. There was writing on it, now. Hers.

– Sorry. I’m being moved on to a new project.

– A new project, she says! Ma’s voice had suddenly taken on a new tone – high and sniffy. – Projects, aren’t we important! Aren’t we special, aren’t we –

– Ma? asked Hannah. I’m sending you an envelope to keep for me. Just some personal stuff. Could you do that?

Betray the customer, and you are betraying yourself.

– Course, I’ll put it with your peanut-butter-label collection. By the way, Dr Higgerlen said he wouldn’t be at all surprised if there wasn’t some odd activity at cell-structure level. But he can only confirm it by booking me in for a session on the convectorator machine at Yokeville Hospital in West Eighth.

Hannah interrupted.

– Ma, this envelope, it’s –

– So I said to him while you’re at it with your machines, my pelvis has been giving me gyp.

– Sorry, Ma, croaked Hannah, interrupting. Can’t breathe. Got to go. And she hung up.

Leaving the room, she flipped Leo’s envelope in her out tray, and felt an instant lightening in her step. She hurried on. It was behind her now. Dealt with. It felt as though someone else had done it, she thought, as she left for another session with Harvey Kidd, her mind tingling with expectation and fear and wholly inappropriate thoughts of sex. A different person altogether.

Someone she didn’t know.