D. Compton - The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe

‘What do you want?’ she said.

‘I don’t want anything.’

‘Of course you do.’ People in the pews in front were turning around to stare. He was right. They would, if they knew, they would eat her. ‘Of course you want something. If you didn’t you would have pretended you didn’t know.’

‘Sooner or later you’d have remembered last night. Me seeing you without your getup. Pretending between people like us is always silly. There has to be honesty, if…’

‘If what?’

He hesitated. ‘If I stick around,’ he said, ‘maybe I can help. These things are easier with two.’

I hesitated. Even with her I could talk about honesty for only just so long and then no longer. ‘If I stick around,’ I said, ‘maybe I can help. These things are easier with two.’ And meant it.

In front of us the Communion service was over. I drew Katherine Mortenhoe to one side to let the four sad celebrants out. They passed us, two visiting anthropologists, with awkward, sideways glances, and went away down between the tables. They didn’t look as if they had just known their god. Pemberton came after them, very tall in his white whatever-it-was.

‘Ritual,’ he said, possibly apologizing. ‘We all need it.’

‘I expect you’re right Vicar.’

No need to tread on any toes. There might, after all, be some believers among the viewers. He went to one of the stoves and lit the gas under a huge tea urn, then trailed away in the direction of the vestry. I envied him his simple duties.

‘Go back to bed,’ I said to Katherine Mortenhoe. ‘We’ll talk about it later. You’ll catch your deather, standing here on these stones in your bare feet. Not to mention what certain people may get up to with your boots.’

And watched her pad away down the transept, and climb into bed, and cover herself, goggles, sou’wester and all, with her blanket… The thing was, I’d been out to talk to Vintent. It was too early for him to be in the monitoring room, so I’d rung his flat, and got past his answering service, and he’d told me I was doing fine. They’d called him down to see a rerun of the scene in the middle of the night — it had everything, atmosphere, drama, pathos, everything. However — and there had to be a however — there unfortunately hadn’t been quite enough light for a positive identification. The viewers would want one, so would I please hurry one along?

‘What you’d really like,’ I said, ‘is a close shot of the celebrated mole on her celebrated right titty.’

‘Don’t take it to heart, old man.’ As if I would. ‘Remember, we’re doing her a kindness in the long run. What she never knows she’ll never grieve over.’

He was right of course — though she’d never thank us for it, by cheating her rotten we were doing her a favor. The alternative, a court injunction and filming under police protection, had been found to please the viewers just as much. So I doused my conscience, and wished Vincent sweet dreams, and on the way back to the church worked out the old honesty-between-friends spiel. After all, I reasoned, I could perfectly well help her with one hand, even as I stabbed her painlessly in the back with the other. Ho ho.

Breakfast was all good stuff: rows of shoveling, fractious people, whom Pemberton served with positively saintlike humility. Vincent would love him, would love the whole setup. I’d have stayed to get more footage, only Katherine was restless, and pressing to be off. I could hardly tell her she was as safe where she was as she’d ever be.

Outside the church we paused. I could feel that even after the little talk we’d had under cover of the snuffling break-fasters, she was still suspicious of me.

Feeling that some sort of eye to the main chance would make me more credible, I said, ‘Do we walk? Or do we use your money?’

‘I haven’t any.’

‘Don’t give me that. The papers said three hundred thousand.’

‘That was for Harry. I’ve got just seventy-three pence.’

Which showed, I supposed, a sort of integrity. ‘Then we’d both better go on Transients’ Benefit.’

She thought about it. ‘It’s Sunday morning,’ she said.

‘Seven-day week, twenty-four-hour service. They like to keep us moving.’

‘They’ll ask all sorts of questions. You know I don’t want questions.’

‘If you’re leaving town they’re not nosy.’ It surprised me that she hadn’t done her research. Her efficiency had odd gaps in it. ‘They hand out to transients on demand. It’s only if you go back that they start being awkward.’

She picked up her holdall. ‘I’ve got a lot to learn,’ she said. ‘And not much time to learn it in.’

She wrote her own fade lines, this girl.

We trailed untelegenically along to the Benefit Bureau, stood in line, had our fingerprints checked, and collected our ten pounds. She nearly jibbed at the fingerprinting, but I shook my head reassuringly and she trusted me. Afterward I explained that, thanks to the Civil Liberties people, Benefit computers were self-serving, kept separate from the National Data Grid… This was a lie, of course: if Vincent had put out a General Hold her prints would have fired off rockets in police stations right across the city. But she believed me. It didn’t escape my notice that she believed me. I must have been a very belief-inspiring sort of person.

The cash in hand cheered her up.

‘Where to now?’ she said, almost laughing at the excitement of it all.

I gestured widely, following her mood. ‘All roads lead out of town.’

So we tossed a coin, which she loved, and took a bus as far as the Western Ring. Beyond that the buses weren’t running, on account of the marchers.

During the ride she had one of her shakes, but she controlled it very well and I needed several close shots to make the point. It showed most in her hands. We talked, for want of anything else, about the political situation. I’d been out of the media for some time, and didn’t really know enough to go with my jeans, but she knew even less. Certainly she wasn’t ready yet to talk about the one thing that deeply interested both of us.

The bus put us down within sight of the Ring Road. She was thrilled, and hurried toward the marchers as if she were afraid of being late and missing something. They’d be still marching, I reckoned, long after she was dead. Her idiotic clogs were loose, and she almost fell. I didn’t want to watch her. She was like a child on her first visit to the zoo. I think that was the moment when I gave up trying to fit together the various Katherine Mortenhoes. What would emerge, would emerge. And a lot of it, surprisingly, was going to be fun.

I caught up with her. Seeing the marchers again like that gave me a nasty feeling. ‘They do it in relays,’ I told her. ‘Day and night. Round and round. Like white mice.’

‘Now you’re being flip. At least they believe in whatever it is.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Like white mice.’

I wanted her to argue, but she didn’t. ‘We’re all white mice,’ she said, suddenly quite cold, and I felt ashamed of having loused it all up. Some marchers waved to us, wanting us to join them, and I put one arm around Katherine and shook my head, and they laughed and carried on, and I said, ‘They think you’re my girl,’ and that one too fell on its face.

She broke away from me and pushed through the marching column. In her klutzy clothes she wasn’t one of them, but they let her through. They let me through also. At least neither of us was flash in the latest three-hundred-horse-power drophead.

She was waiting for me on the far side of the road, leaning against a lamp post. ‘You’ve been very helpful,’ she said. ‘Now I’d rather manage on my own.’