Michel Faber - The Book of Strange New Things

I went to the supermarket yesterday, it was closed. No explanation, just a sellotaped piece of paper saying it wouldn’t open until further notice. Quite a lot of people outside, would-be customers peering through the glass. Inside, the lights were on, everything looked as normal, the shelves stocked up. A couple of security guys stationed near the doors. A few staff(?) walking around the aisles talking calmly, as though nobody could see them, as though they were in their own living room instead of on public display in the high street. Weird. I stood there for about five minutes, I don’t know why. Eventually a cheeky young West Indian man called through the glass to one of the security guys, saying ‘Can I have a packet of 20 Benson & Hedges, mate?’ No response, so he adds, ‘It’s for me mum, mate!’ A ripple of laughter went through the crowd. It was one of those communal things, when something small and funny happens that everyone ‘gets’, and for just an instant everyone’s united. I love those moments. Anyway it was obviously downhill from there so I walked to the 24-hour convenience store and tried to score some milk there but no joy.

What are you eating, my darling? Anything I would fancy a bite of?

The USIC mess hall was bathed in orange light. It was afternoon. It would be afternoon for ages yet.

He ordered cream of chicken soup and a bread roll from the food counter. A woman was working there today, a Greek-looking beauty he hadn’t yet got to know. He’d made conversation with most of the USIC personnel, to gauge whether he could be of use to anyone on a spiritual level, and had found them to be an uncommonly phlegmatic, self-contained bunch. This Greek woman was a new one on him, though, and there was a look in her eyes that offered hope that there might be a God-shaped hole in her life. He wondered if he should pursue the opportunity. But he was hungry and besides his mind was full of the Oasans. His next departure was less than an hour away.

The soup was tasty, despite containing neither cream nor pieces of chicken. It had a rich chicken stock flavour, no doubt transported here in powder form. The whiteflower roll was crisp on the outside and spongy on the inside, still slightly warm — exactly as a bread roll should be. He ate and gave thanks to God for every mouthful.

The sound filtering through the PA was some sort of Dixieland jazz he couldn’t identify. Ancient music wasn’t his specialty. Every few minutes, a recorded announcement recited a list of trombonists and trumpeters and pianists and so on.

He finished his meal and returned the bowl to the counter.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘You’re welcome,’ the woman said. Her wrist, as she picked up the bowl, was knobbly yet delicate, like Bea’s. He wished he could link fingers with Bea just for three seconds and feel the bone of her wrist against his own flesh. The need of it struck him as he stood there, his eyes misted over; then he pulled himself together.

He returned to his seat, to allow the food to settle in his stomach. Stroking his palm down the front of his tunic, he was stung by a spark of static electricity, a phenomenon he’d noticed often before when he was too full of anticipation. He closed his eyes and sent a prayer to God for calm. A measure of calm was granted.

On the public address system, the Dixieland jazz had given way to something less hectic. He started to leaf through magazines from the racks near his armchair, spending a couple of minutes on each one before neatly replacing it.

His initial impression had been that USIC offered a comprehensive selection of what might be on sale in a newsagent’s back home. Now that he examined the magazines more carefully, he wasn’t so sure. House & Garden, Hot Goss, Aquarium Fish, Men’s Health, Lesbian Action, The Chemical Engineer, Classic Jazz, Vogue … Yes, they were fairly recent, having arrived on the same ship that brought him to Oasis. And yes, they covered a broad range of interests, but… there was no hard news in any of them. He scanned the buzzwords and the teasers emblazoned on the covers. They were the same buzzwords and teasers that had appeared on these sorts of publications for decades. Absent from the racks was any magazine that reported on what was happening on the front lines, so to speak. You could read about jazz or how to harden your abdominal muscles or what to feed your fish, but where were the political crises, the earthquakes, the wars, the demises of major corporations? He picked up Hot Goss , a showbiz tattle mag, and flipped through it. Article after article was about celebrities he’d never heard of. Two pages came loose in his hand, alerting him to the fact that another two pages further on had been torn out. He found the relevant place. Sure enough, the numbering jumped from 32 to 37. He flipped back to the contents page and consulted the blurbs for a clue to the missing material. ‘ Umber Rosaria Goes To Africa! Our fave party girl swaps rehab for refugee camps ’.

‘Hey, preacher!’

He looked up. A sardonic-looking man with several days’ growth of stubble was standing over him.

‘Hi, Tuska,’ said Peter. ‘Good to see you. Growing the beard back?’

Tuska shrugged. ‘No big deal. Different display panel, same machine.’ He sat down in the nearest armchair and nodded towards the Hot Goss in Peter’s hands. ‘That crap will turn your brain to jelly.’

‘I’m just checking out what’s available here,’ said Peter. ‘And I noticed a couple of pages have been torn out.’

Tuska leaned back, crossed one leg over the other. ‘Only a couple? Jeez, you should check out Lesbian Action . A third of it is gone, easy.’ He winked. ‘We’d probably need to break into Hayes’s quarters to get it back.’

Peter maintained eye contact with Tuska but did not allow his face to express approval or disapproval. This often acted as a moral mirror, he’d found, reflecting back at a person what they’d just said.

‘No disrespect meant, you understand,’ added Tuska. ‘She’s a damn good engineer. Keeps herself to herself. Like all of us here, I guess.’

Peter replaced Hot Goss on the racks. ‘Are you married, Tuska?’

Tuska raised one bushy brow. ‘A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,’ he intoned theatrically, wiggling his fingers in the air to emphasise the antiquated pop-culture reference. Then, in his normal voice. ‘Haven’t heard from her in twenty years. More.’

‘Is there a special person in your life right now?’

Tuska narrowed his eyes pensively, play-acted a thorough scrutiny of the available data. ‘Nope,’ he said after four or five seconds. ‘Can’t say that there is.’

Peter smiled to signal that he understood the joke, but somewhere in his eyes there must have been a stray glint of pity, because Tuska felt provoked to explain further.

‘You know, Peter, I’m surprised you got through the USIC screening process. Real surprised, as a matter of fact.’ For several beats, he kept Peter waiting for elaboration. ‘If you look at the guys and gals working here, you’ll find that pretty much all of us are… ah… free agents. No wives or husbands back home. No steady girlfriends, no dependent children, no moms checking the mailbox. No strings.’

‘Because of the high risk of us dying on the way here?’

‘Dying? Who’s dying? We’ve had one accident in all these years and it had nothing to do with the Jump, it was a freak thing that could’ve happened to a commercial jet plane on its way to LA. The kinda thing insurance companies call an Act of God.’ He winked, then got back to the point. ‘Nah, the screening process… it’s about conditions here. Life here. What can I say? “Isolated” would be a fair word for it. The big risk, for anybody, is going crazy. Not psycho-killer, axe-murderer crazy, just… crazy. So-o-o… ’ He drew a deep, indulgent breath. ‘So it’s best if you’ve got a team of individuals that understand what it’s like to be in permanent… limbo. To have no other plans… nowhere else to go… nobody in the picture who particularly gives a damn. Know what I’m saying? People who can deal with that.’