Iain Banks - Transition

“She talked to me for a long time. During that hour or so I calmed down, I relaxed a little and I realised that I no longer felt quite so distressed. I accepted a handkerchief from her and dried my tears, I took a few deep breaths, I nodded at what she said, I clutched at her hand when she offered it to me and I hugged her when that seemed like the right thing to do. I thanked her for listening and for suggesting that I take the rest of the day off, which I did. I did all this and I felt relieved in that way because I’d realised she was mad and that soon this would all be over, or at least my part in it would soon be over, because I had to get away from that place for my own sanity, my own peace of mind, and if, as I suspected, Madame d’Ortolan would rather have had me imprisoned or even killed than let me go from there while I might be harbouring any doubts about what was being done, then at least making the attempt would bring an end to it one way or the other. It hadn’t occurred to me that she was more likely to turn me from one of the investigating to one of the investigated. If she’d caught me I’d have been the one in the padded cell or the strap-down bed. I heard that happened to a couple of other dissenters, later.”

Our chips were removed. Mrs M leant forward to replace hers with another, almost colliding with the retreating rake removing the previous one. She hesitated, then she nodded at our two piles of chips. “Shall we put them together?”

“You have more to lose,” I pointed out.

“Even so.”

“Then, certainly.” I used my hand as a blade, pushing my small pile into hers. She took all our remaining chips and stacked them onto the square she had been favouring.

“Theodora had miscalculated,” she continued. “I knew people. I’d made friends with some of the trackers and the septus chemists, taken a few as lovers. Some of them had misgivings too. Some just needed somebody to talk to. Some only wanted sex. When I left, very suddenly and without warning – despite the fact that Theodora was having me watched by a team of spotters and trackers brought in specially, immediately after our talk – it was without a trace, without the traditional puff of smoke, and with a plastic drum the size of my head containing a supply of untraceable septus in micropill form that will last me into my dotage, or until Theodora finally captures me or has me killed. I even have enough to share around, Tem,” she told me, glancing at me. “I am a bandit queen with a following these days. I have my own small band of outlaws. Care to join?”

I sat back, took a deep breath, put a hand to my bald head and smoothed my hand over my naked scalp. “What would I be supposed to do?”

“Nothing direct yet. Just keep what I’ve said in mind. Keep your eyes and ears open and, when you’re asked to jump, jump the right way.”

“Is that all? You could have sent a note.”

“You’ll remember tonight, Tem,” she said, with a wintry smile. “I’ve risked a lot to come and see you like this. That… emprise is a signifier of both my seriousness and that of the situation.”

“And why me, anyway?”

“You’re Theodora’s golden boy, aren’t you?”

“Am I?”

“Have you had to fuck her yet?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Astonishing. She must actually like you.”

“So why do you think I would act against her?”

“Because I know that she’s an evil old fuck and I hope that you’re not.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“And you’re an evil old fuck too?”

“I meant about her; but either.”

“Then we are lost. Because I am not wrong about her.”

“Hmm?” I said in response to somebody nudging my elbow. I looked round and saw a substantial pile of chips being pushed up the table towards us like an untidily clacking wave of gleaming plastic.

“Isn’t that just the way?” she breathed, and swung herself onto my lap, draped herself over my paunch, threw her arms around me and in the midst of a deep kiss, with her legs wrapping around mine under the table, we transitioned back to the dark bedroom of my house just in time for her to slip off me and me out of her.

She placed a single straight finger across my lips and then rose, dressed and left.

She had left two tiny pills on my bedside cabinet. They were exactly like septus micropills except that each had an almost invisibly small red dot, rather than the standard blue one, centred on the top surface.

I met GF in the doctor’s surgery. GF were her initials as well as being what she was. She was one year below me in school. I had seen her a few times in town, at bus stops and in the library. She was tall and skinny and had thin brown hair. She always walked with her head down and shoulders hunched as though she felt she was too tall or was always looking for something on the ground. She wore braces and cheap glasses and always dressed in long dark dresses and long-sleeved tops even on hot days. Often she wore a sort of shapeless hat which looked like it had been pulled down hard over her ears. Her face and nose were both elongated. Her eyes looked quite big until she took her glasses off.

I had left school that spring and was in a training college. Even though I was now a young man I didn’t know how to approach girls so I followed her home from the surgery and got up very early the next morning so that I could be waiting at her bus stop when she got the school bus. When she arrived at the bus stop I said hello and left it at that, burying my face in my newspaper. I had intended to engage her in conversation but decided that it would be better to take things more gradually. Two other girls in school uniform turned up but they didn’t talk to her. The bus came and they got on. I couldn’t, of course, because it was a school bus and I wasn’t in school any more.

The next two days were the weekend and I hung around places in town where I’d seen her before but she didn’t show up. At the start of the next week I went back to her bus stop. This time I smiled and said hello and attempted to engage her in conversation but she was very quiet and looked embarrassed. When the other two girls appeared she stopped talking altogether and stood at the far end of the bus shelter. The other two girls looked at me strangely. I took the next ordinary bus that came along even though it wasn’t the one I needed.

I returned the next day, undaunted. I spoke to her again. She wore sunglasses even though it was a dull day. I thought perhaps she imagined that I would not recognise her, though this was wrong. The other two girls huddled together and glanced at her and giggled and sniggered. One of them asked if she had walked into a door and she ran away in the direction of her home and appeared to be crying. She missed the school bus, which the two girls boarded.

She had left her school bag behind. I looked in it and found school books, pencils and pens and a girl’s magazine as well as some sweets. Something rattled inside her pencil sharpener, which was of the type that comes contained in its own cylindrical waste-shavings bin. I unscrewed it and discovered four spare blades for the sharpener, though no small screwdriver with which to facilitate the replacement of one blade by another. Two of the spare blades had what looked like dried blood on them. I kept one and replaced everything else as it had been, save for a Sugar Cherry, which I ate.

I remained, awaiting my own bus, and she reappeared. I said hello again and handed her the school bag and asked if she was all right. She muttered something and nodded. She got on the same bus as me but sat elsewhere.

The next day she still wore the dark glasses. She stood in the bus stop and stared at me, though she ignored my attempts at polite conversation. When the two other girls appeared – to be joined later by another – she ignored them too. When the school bus came she ignored that also. The driver shrugged and drove off. When my bus came she got on it with me and asked to sit beside me. I of course said yes, and was happy at this unexpected turn of events. I was beside the window, she was by the aisle.