Liz Jensen - The Rapture

‘Have you heard of moral duty?’ Ned speaks calmly enough, but he looks ready for violence. ‘Have you heard of non-assistance to people in danger?’ He gets to his feet and starts pacing the room, stroking at his stubble.

‘Speaking personally, I would always prefer to know my options,’ says Frazer Melville. ‘So that I could make my own choices. We don’t have the right to deny that to others.’

Harish Modak does not look impressed. ‘I am glad to be this old,’ he says, sighing. ‘I would hate to be young.’

‘It completely fucking sucks,’ agrees Bethany, sticking her finger in her ear and tilting her head back carefully, as though it contains liquid that might spill.

‘Harish,’ I say. He swivels his head and frowns.

‘My dear Miss Fox.’

‘Whatever the future’s like for most people, it’s going to be even harder for me. But I don’t want to die. I want to live.’ I sound more sure of this than I feel.

‘There is living and there is surviving.’

‘Are we back to the avoidance of grief?’ I notice Kristin stiffening.

‘In a way, we are,’ says Modak. ‘And is there anything wrong with that?’ The decision was to avoid grief. For oneself but also for others.

I turn to Kristin. ‘You knew Meera well. What would she say now, do you think?’

Modak looks stung at the mention of his wife’s name. Good. If Meera is forbidden territory, then trespassing will have an effect.

‘I tell you what she’d say, Gabrielle,’ says Kristin. She’s addressing me but her words are for him. ‘She’d be ashamed to hear her husband talking like this.’ Modak’s face tightens and he lets out an exasperated noise. ‘She didn’t see the world the way Harish does. She never did. She sacrificed too much for him.’ His eyelids close to shut her out. But she won’t stop. ‘She wanted children. But you wouldn’t agree, would you, Harish? She’d have risked grief, for the sake of some kind of future. If she were here now she would tell you that if it’s the last thing you do—’

Kristin breaks off and looks away, too furious to go on.

‘I agree with Professor M here,’ grins Bethany. ‘The world sucks. Humans suck. We don’t deserve to live. None of us. Let something else take over the planet. Some kind of scorpion or whatever it’s going to be. Toadstools. Hyenas. Those glow-in-the-dark creepy-crawlies. So what if a load of idiots get swept away.’

‘That is not what I am saying, Miss Krall,’ he says, standing up, his fists clenched. ‘You are misrepresenting me.’

‘How?’

‘In every way possible.’

‘You don’t agree then?’

‘The present universe has undergone innumerable deaths and rebirths.’

I grab his clenched hand, pull him down next to me and force him to look at me. I want him to witness my fury. ‘Whatever you feel about the Great Cycle and Gaia and the futility of the species is irrelevant, Harish! The issue is about the people who are alive now, who will die if you don’t help us warn them!’ He wants his hand back but I won’t let go. ‘Look at me. I felt like a murderer after Istanbul. So did Frazer. If we fail to act now, none of us is any better than any war criminal on trial in The Hague. Most of all you, because you’re the one with the power to do something.’

Kristin moves over and stands behind him, resting her fingers lightly on his shoulder.

Abruptly, Ned leaps up, grabs the tray and heads for a side-cupboard. He returns with six glasses and unscrews the Laph-roaig.

‘We all are. Let’s drink to your health, Harish. And your moral courage.’

‘But I haven’t—’ Harish begins.

‘Yes you have,’ I say. ‘And we salute you for it.’

He draws away from me and stands up. We’re all looking at him. He sighs. As though drained of energy by the conflict, he sits down again with a small hard thud.

‘I will say one thing to all of you. And I will say it to anyone thinking beyond this disaster. Be careful what you wish for.’ Then, blinking, he reaches for the jar in his briefcase. It is too intimate. I look away.

Determined to keep the momentum of Harish’s forced decision, Ned clinks glasses and proposes a further toast to Bethany. ‘A Coke for you, Bethany? Fruit juice?’

It might be the first time in her entire life that anyone has proposed a toast in her honour, but she shakes her head sullenly. The look on her face, as she rolls another lychee between her fingers, disturbs me. She is working up to something.

‘If my wife were here, she would remind us that there’s a common misconception about the Chinese character that represents the word "crisis",’ says Harish Modak, sipping his whisky. With the inoral decisions behind him, he seems to be rallying.

‘Crisis equals danger plus opportunity,’ says Frazer Melville.

‘So Western business gurus and life coaches would have you believe. They’ll show you how the strokes break down, and say: look. Danger and opportunity. But the Chinese will tell you that is in fact a myth.’

‘The moral being?’

‘That a crisis is simply a crisis, nothing more and nothing less.’

‘For Traxorac, this is going to be about pride, self-image, about face,’ I say, thinking aloud. ‘We’re dealing with the emotions of institutions, with herd psychology. And herds are unwieldy and tumultuous, they have mood swings, they go through phases in their thinking, they get id é es fixes.’

‘No one likes to admit they screwed up,’ agrees Ned. ‘But it will apply to governments too.’

‘Our job is to warn the maximum number of people in the most efficient and convincing way about what’s coming, whether or not Traxorac admit the danger, and whether or not the authorities listen,’ says Kristin Jons dottir. If I didn’t hate her I would like her. And I hate her for not letting me like her. ‘I’ll bet that once they recognise it’s happening, they’ll be more preoccupied first with a cover-up and then with looking for a scapegoat than in tackling the logistics.’

‘She’s right,’ says Ned, reaching for a notepad. ‘I’ve seen it from the inside. The first instinct will be denial, but then they’ll flip into blame mode.’ He is jotting something down.

‘If a horizontal crack’s forming, and loosening the sediment package where they’ve been drilling, there will be proof of it somewhere,’ says Frazer Melville, taking a slug of whisky.

‘Yes. One piece of evidence would do it,’ says Kristin. ‘If it were uncontestable. If it’s visible anywhere, it’ll be in Traxorac’s latest seismic logs of the drill-site. If you compare them over time, and there’s a discrepancy, it means there’s been movement. That would be proof.’

‘Harish,’ says Ned bluntly, looking up from his note-making. ‘We’ll be needing your clout there too.’

‘I feel a thousand years old.’

‘Once we have the logs, we hold a press conference and present the facts and the public can make its own decision. Which is what we owe them. Then we get somewhere safe, fast.’

‘Who’s we?’ says Bethany. The room goes still. ‘I said who the fuck is we?’

With a huge effort, she tries to stand up. But it’s too soon: she’s weak. She sways on her feet, and looks ready to topple. ‘You listen to me, fuckwits.’ She seizes hold of the sofa arm and manages to right herself. Frazer Melville moves to help her but she shakes him off. She has our attention. ‘I’m the one who saw it happening. So don’t even fucking think about handing me back to those wankers at Oxsmith. Or Kiddup Manor. You know what’ll happen there.’ No one speaks. Ned shifts uncomfortably. ‘Well?’ she accuses. ‘Well, Professor M? Ned? Frazer? Kristin? Wheels? Are you going to dump me now you’ve got what you need?’ Her eyes are having trouble focusing. Spotting it, Frazer Melville pulls her firmly back down to the sofa. ‘Flush me down the fucking toilet, you arseholes? Is that your plan?’