Michel Faber - The Book of Strange New Things

‘Did you see them spill the cinnamon?’ Peter said.

‘Uh-huh.’

‘It’s so nice the way they didn’t make a big drama out of it. The one who dropped the tub didn’t put on a show of guilt or frustration. And his friend didn’t criticise him or make a fuss. They just noted what had happened and moved on.’

‘Yeah, it’s real inspiring. I could sit here and watch them drop our food on the ground all day.’

‘Although I must say,’ Peter remarked, ‘that the USIC personnel seem quite sensible and relaxed, too.’ Even as he said it, he had to concede that Grainger could be an exception.

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Drama is a no-no.’

‘You mean… there’s an actual rule? Like, a regulation?’

She laughed. ‘No. We’re free to be our sweet little selves. Within reason.’ The air was growing cooler again, and she wrapped her shawl around her throat.

The Oasans were still carrying supplies to the back of the van. The sacks were all stowed now, but the plastic tubs kept coming, all filled with ingenious whiteflower creations. An awful lot of work had gone into this food, both agricultural and culinary; it seemed like an excessive amount of labour and material to exchange for a few packets of medicine. Well, quite a few packets, but still…

‘How come USIC has so many drugs spare?’ he said.

‘We don’t,’ she said. ‘We get extra supplies sent specially for this purpose. Every ship has a fresh lot on board: a bunch for us, a bunch for them.’

‘Sounds like quite an operation,’ he said.

‘Not really. Expenditure-wise, logistics-wise, it’s no problem at all. Drugs don’t take up much room and they weigh very little. Compared to magazines or… uh… raisins… or Pepsi. Or human beings, of course.’

It looked as though the last item had been deposited in the rear. Peter peered through the tinted window to find Jesus Lover One. He couldn’t see him anymore. ‘I’ll do my best to justify my freight costs,’ he said.

‘Nobody’s complaining,’ said Grainger. ‘These… people — the Oasans, as you call them — wanted you, and they got you. So everybody’s happy, right?’

But Grainger did not look happy. She adjusted the rear-view mirror to its correct position, which took a bit of fiddling, and her sleeve slipped off her wrist as far as her elbow. Peter noticed scars on her forearm: old self-harm, long-healed, but indelible. History written on the flesh. He’d known so many self-harmers. They were always beautiful. Seeing Grainger’s scars, he realised for the first time that she was beautiful, too.

The engine purred as it bore him back towards what Grainger called civilisation. Inside the cabin, the atmosphere was cool and filtered. Outside, the landscape had been abruptly transformed. For hundreds of hours, it had been the ground beneath his feet, a changeless environment for his daily routine, rock-solid under slowly evolving skies, familiar in every detail. Now it was insubstantial: a display of images flickering past tinted glass. The sun had slipped out of sight, hidden by the roof. Peter leaned his face near to the window and tried to look back, to catch a glimpse of the settlement. It was already gone.

Grainger drove with her usual careless competence, but seemed preoccupied, irritable. As well as keeping the steering wheel steady, she tapped keys on the dashboard and made numbers and symbols dance on an emerald-green screen. She rubbed at her eyes, blinked hard and, evidently deciding that there was too much air blowing onto her contact lenses, adjusted the air-con settings.

How strange it was to be inside a machine again! All his life he’d been inside machines, whether he realised it or not. Modern houses were machines. Shopping centres were machines. Schools. Cars. Trains. Cities. They were all sophisticated technological constructs, wired up with lights and motors. You switched them on, and didn’t spare them a thought while they pampered you with unnatural services.

‘Looks like you’re the King of Freaktown,’ Grainger remarked breezily. Then, before he could take her to task for boorish disrespect: ‘… as some of my USIC colleagues would no doubt put it.’

‘We’re working together,’ said Peter. ‘The Oasans and I.’

‘Sounds cosy. But they’re doing exactly what you want, right?’

He looked across at her. She had her eyes fixed on the terrain ahead. He half-expected her to be chewing gum. It would have matched her tone.

‘They want to learn more about God,’ he said. ‘So we’re building a church. Of course it’s not essential to have a physical place; you can worship God anywhere. But a church provides a focus.’

‘A signal that you mean business, huh?’

Again he looked across at her, this time staring hard until she acknowledged him with a sideways glance.

‘Grainger,’ he said, ‘why do I get the feeling our roles are reversed here? In this conversation, I mean? You’re the employee of a giant corporation, establishing a colony here. I’m the leftie pastor, the one who’s supposed to be concerned about whether the little guys are being exploited.’

‘OK, I’ll try to be more stereotypical,’ she said lightly. ‘Maybe a coffee will do it.’

She fetched a Thermos up from the floor and balanced it next to her thigh. With her left hand on the steering wheel, she attempted, with her right hand, to unscrew the firmly-sealed cap. Her wrist trembled.

‘Let me do that for you.’

She handed it over. He unscrewed the cup and poured her a coffee. The oily brown liquid was no longer hot enough to give off steam.

‘Here.’

‘Thanks,’ she said, and took a sip. ‘This tastes like shit.’

He laughed. Grainger’s face looked odd to him when he saw it up close. Beautiful yet unreal, like a plastic doll’s head mould. Her lips were too perfect, her skin too pale. But maybe it was the golden sunrise thing all over again: maybe he had already, in the last three hundred and sixty-eight hours, adjusted to the way Oasans looked, and begun to accept their faces as the norm. Grainger didn’t fit.

‘Hey, I just thought of something,’ he said. ‘The drugs you give the Oasans are requisitioned especially for them, right?’

‘Right.’

‘But, from what you were saying back there, when you were talking to Jesus Lover One… ’

‘Jesus what ?’

‘Jesus Lover One. That’s his name.’

‘The name you’ve given him?’

‘No, the name he’s given himself.’

‘Oh. OK.’

Her face was impassive, with perhaps just the hint of a smirk. He couldn’t tell if she disapproved of him deeply, or thought the whole thing was just ridiculous.

‘Anyway,’ he pressed on, ‘when you were talking about diabetes, I got the impression the Oasans don’t even know what diabetes is . So why offer them insulin?’

Grainger finished her coffee and screwed the cup back onto the thermos. ‘I guess I didn’t want it to go to waste,’ she said. ‘The insulin wasn’t meant for them; it was our own supply. But we don’t need it anymore.’ She paused for a couple of beats. ‘Severin died.’

‘Severin? The guy I travelled with?’

‘Yup.’

‘He’s a diabetic?’

‘Was.’

Peter tried to recall the journey he’d shared with Severin. It felt like something that had happened in another phase of his life, much longer ago than a few weeks.

‘When did he die?’

‘Last night. That phrase doesn’t mean much here, I know. Toward the end of the night.’ She consulted her watch. ‘About eighteen hours ago.’ Another couple of beats’ pause. ‘You’re conducting the funeral service. If you’re willing, that is.’