Book 24 - An Imperfect Utopia, page 4
Whatever the crisis, I am expected to have an opinion, if not the answer, but what do I know of shipbuilding or education policy? What do I know about farming or the construction of tidal barrages? What do I know about the importance of chlorine to the chemical industry? Yes, what did politicians ever know? That is why the civil service employed experts. One universal truth, undiminished by the outbreak, is that no one wants ultimate responsibility for lives yet unborn. That goes for Janet and Napatchie as much as for Nilda and Rahinder, Heather and Bran. I certainly don’t want it either. But because I can’t identify a tumour, build a refinery, or teach how to replace a broken window, I’m the one who has to stand on that pedestal and accept the flowers, knowing that slings and arrows will follow. So, yes, it was gratifying to once again be doing something I do know, like writing a speech.
I took a photograph of the final draft and put the original into the office’s small safe. The phone went into my pocket so I could run the speech by Chester after dinner. That only left swapping my indoor T-shirt for the royal blue button-down and black tie with the rather nice half-moon pattern. When I saw myself in the mirror, I had to smile at how the meaning of a black-tie dinner has changed somewhat in the last two years. For the better, I think. Ten minutes ahead of schedule, I went downstairs.
What can I say of our home? I’m not one to believe in ghosts, but this place is more haunted than any castle I’ve ever visited. At least it’s close to the White House. That sounds too dismissive. I know Kim put a lot of effort into selecting both the island and the home. It was designed and built by the architect who inherited the land from his farmer-father. We have yet to find any mention or photographs of the mother. The old farmhouse was torn down, and in its place were built four holiday cottages. Those are currently being used as overspill accommodation for the White House, and tonight are hosting the guests who’ve come for tomorrow’s inauguration. The rest of the land was sold to the neighbours who owned a craft farm.
It’s a two-storey with seven bedrooms upstairs, and the same number of rooms downstairs, and that’s just the northern half of the house. The southern half is a cavernous living-room kitchen. The rear wall is made of glass that becomes transparent when a current is run through it. I assume it’s glass, though it’s as thick as a brick, and will be impossible to repair when it breaks. In other words, it’s the very opposite of a castle. Still, the house is big enough for our needs, which have grown quite a bit. Kim and Wendy Seward have been sharing parenting duties while I was schlepping my way across Canada. When Wendy and Joseph are on the island with their infant daughter Bea, they stay in our house. So does their teenage daughter Tasha, who shares a room with Annette where they can more easily plot and conspire. When the rest of the Seward clan come with them, they use one of the cottages. They also share the child-watching skills of Hazel, who has a room of her own as she is now our live-in nanny and Kim’s administrative assistant. She’s my assistant, too, I suppose.
We have an art room, a Lego room, a growing library, and an office with its very own functioning landline phone, albeit there are only five other landlines on the island. Each four-digit number is a year. Dial 1776 and you get connected with the White House’s radio room. 1066 is the school. 1400 is the harbour, selected by Heather when she thought the number was for her home port on Vancouver Island. Janet’s House is 1972, the year the first woman, a nurse no less, achieved the rank of admiral in the U.S. Navy. The hospital is 1928, marking the year penicillin was created. And we are 1890, a date picked by Annette either in homage or mockery of my brother. Probably a little of both.
Yes, all in all, it’s a decent house with more mod cons than I knew existed. As long as we keep the generator powered up, we’ve got air con and as much freshly made ice as I can crunch. Forget your smart lights and smarter lock systems, on-demand ice-cubes are the true sign of success. I give it two years before everything breaks, but until then, I shall revel in being a domestic frost god.
I suppose that’s why I’m somewhat ambivalent about the house. All its wondrous little gadgets are dependent on electricity which comes from a generator. If we run out of fuel on the island, we’ll have bigger issues than my inability to throw ice to the squirrels. But things will break, and we will have to move on since there’s no way we can repair them. Yes, this feels like another temporary home. Well, of course it is, because Kim picked it due to its proximity to the White House.
We’ll hold the inauguration tomorrow. In six and a bit years, Janet will step-down from the presidency. Someone else will be elected, and then we’ll move on, too, assuming Janet wins the election in two years, of course.
I don’t know how long these versions of the United States and Canada will last. One of the few things on which everyone in the leadership group can agree is that they will eventually be replaced with a new federation. To do that, we first need assemblies that are viewed, internally and externally, as the legitimate successors of the old American nations. Janet thinks it will take six years. I think ten. Sholto thinks two elected presidents as a bare minimum. Regardless, when that day comes, only then can the assemblies vote to dissolve and form a new union with their neighbour. At which point we can finally pick a new capital or build one along the old border. For now, we’re stuck with San Juan, which is dependent on supplies brought in by boat. The logistics are an absolute nightmare, and that’s only one of the reasons I wouldn’t have selected it as our new capital. The decision was made by Janet and Kim long before I arrived, yet in the forty-odd hours I’ve been here, I’ve had six compliments on my choice of the island, and four complaints.
The wall clock showed five forty when I got downstairs. Daisy sat at her little red table by the giant glass wall, drawing lines, some horizontal, some vertical. It took a moment to realise she was sketching an abstract landscape of the trees visible outside, each the correct relative height and position. In a pink chair next to her was Bea Seward. A couple of years younger, the infant was diligently attempting to copy Daisy. Her scrawl did have a good deal of vertical lines, but also a lot more colourful scribbles. Hazel was curled up in the cushioned wicker chair next to them, a textbook on organisational systems in her lap, and her eyes firmly closed.
Everyone else was gathered around the kitchen-continent; it was too large to be called a kitchen-island. Kim and Wendy wore smart summer dresses, albeit with sensible shoes, and this season’s must-have accessory, a holstered semiautomatic. Joseph had eschewed a tie in favour of a ceremonial necklace. Honestly, I find him too intimidating to ask its significance. If I could stand up straight, we’d be about the same height, but the man has the presence of a rumbling volcano. Whenever he’s around me, I’m sure he’s about to explode. Annette and Tasha wore nearly matching jeans and blue tops, blue earrings that were probably genuine sapphire, and odd little white scarves around their necks. I’m sure they had significance too, but I’d rather ask Joseph about his tribal accoutrements than question the two teenage girls about their outfits.
On the counter in front of them was an open leather-bound folder.
“Hey hon, we’re looking at the new bank notes,” Kim said, turning the folder towards me.
“They’re ready? Brilliant,” I said, reaching for the folder to bring it nearer, but Annette grabbed it first.
“Look at this one, Dad. It looks like Mount St Helens is erupting. That’d be so cool on a banknote.”
“If I could guarantee each note would look like that, I’d agree,” Joseph said. “But that’s the most legible of the entire test-plate.”
“We’re not using those?” I asked.
“That’s the original design,” Annette said. “You know, that won the competition. Everyone’s going to be super mad that we have to use these new pictures.”
“You don’t like them?” Joseph asked.
“Oh, no, the daisy is awesome,” Annette said, flipping back to the first sleeve which held two one-dollar bills. On the front was a pink-tinged salmon in greenish waters. On the obverse was a pink-petalled daisy with a green stem and leaf. “It’s just that the kids put so much effort into their drawings. They were really looking forward to seeing them on actual money.”
“We’ll keep those designs for the next batch, once we’ve had more time to work out the inks,” Jospeh said. “You think we’ll get those rolled out in two years, don’t you, Bill?”
I just nodded as if I had a clue what was going on.
“Cool. So can we go now? Thad’s going to be waiting,” Annette said.
“You’re not coming to eat with us at the school?” I asked.
“Thad’s throwing a party in his house,” Annette said as if that answered my question.
“The big cottage next door,” Kim said. “Off you go, but only to Sholto’s place. And you’re to be back here by nine. If you’re not, Hazel will call. We’ve got phones now, remember, so not a minute late or you’ll lose lake privileges for the rest of the summer.”
“Yes, Miss Kim,” Tasha said sweetly.
“Cool. See ya!” Annette took Tasha’s hand, and the two girls ran out before any further stipulations could be given.
Two months is a long time in any child’s life. During my absence, Daisy has grown a little more talkative but also seems more focused. Annette seems to have sewn herself to Tasha’s hip. It’s good the girls have a friend in each other, even if co-conspirator is a more apt description.
With the teenagers gone, I finally got to pick up the folder, flipping through the designs. A dollar, two dollars, five, ten, and fifty.
“No twenty?” I asked.
“Do we need it?” Joseph asked.
“We couldn’t come up with a design that worked,” Wendy added.
“These are great,” I said. It seemed the safest comment. “What competition was Annette talking about?”
“We had the kids in the school design the banknotes,” Kim said. “They got really into it and had some quite sensible suggestions. Well, mostly. Tarquin wanted each to have an open book, a different book for each note, with the text legible. Janine wanted old rulers. Genghis Khan was her suggestion for the fifty. They held a vote. The winning designs had landmarks and animals that could have been found on either side of the border.”
“The dollar bill was to show a border-crossing, the fence broken, and a family of moose grazing on both sides,” Wendy said. “But Joseph’s been etching the design onto plates, and that was too much detail to do by hand.”
“I just needed more time,” Joseph said.
“These are amazing,” I said, turning back to the finished set. “These will do very well, though we’ll need pennies, too.”
“Ah, there the problem is forgery detection,” Joseph said. “I was speaking with Mr Carson. He suggested a non-magnetic alloy containing a small amount of gold so that it is measurably heavier than something the same size stamped out of copper.”
“Or we could use postage stamps,” I said. “The guests coming to the inauguration have brought two sacks’ worth of mail with them, and not a single one paid postage. It’s an obvious revenue stream, plus easier to carry around than coins, and opens up business-by-mail. Send the coupon back with six stamps to get your copy of the next best-seller, that kind of thing.”
“Stamps?” Joseph said, his face darkening.
“Wouldn’t those require glue?” Kim asked.
“Well, we need glue, too,” I said. “I’d imagine the chemists who developed the ink might look into it. Perhaps we can use the competition designs on the stamps.”
“Why don’t you put that in writing for Eralyn Goode, our chief chemist,” Wendy said quickly. “We’ll take it over when we go back tomorrow.”
“And we should be going, or we’ll be late,” Kim added.
I knew I’d said something wrong. Perhaps I’d underestimated the amount of work involved in creating stamps relative to coins. Or Joseph thought I was a Tommy-come-lately who knew what he wanted and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Perhaps both, and he’s not entirely wrong. While on the road, and for the first time since I’d left my apartment, the long drive had afforded me time to truly think. It was a luxury unavailable to Janet, Kim, Nilda, Joseph, and all the others dealing with the daily grind of running our state. More than that, I’d had time to fret over the logistics that will govern our lives and so form the framework of our future. Perhaps the real problem is that I’m overeager to share my thoughts, rather than listen to those of others, an oversight I pledged to rectify over dinner at the school.
Chapter 2 - School Dinners
Friday Harbour, San Juan Island
Around ten thousand once called San Juan Island their home, a mix of retirees, artists, and those dependent on the summer tourist season. About a third of the buildings were wrecked by fire shortly after the outbreak, or were so damaged by the storms creeping through broken windows that they are beyond repair. Their remains will have to be incinerated or dumped at sea, creating another drain on our already overworked fleet. Our population is currently floating around one and a half thousand, about half of whom are associated with the orphanage and hospital.
Yesterday, after I’d arrived and because Janet was in surgery, Chester gave me a tour of what is currently called The Western Tower. This latest iteration of their orphanage and school is situated on the outskirts of Friday Harbour, San Juan’s largest town and on the island’s western coast. The orphans sleep in apartment blocks, renamed for the ancient royal houses of Britain and Ireland. Those who are part of a more traditional family unit live in the bungalows on what was Terra Bella Lane, but which is now called The Block. The confusing naming habits of English schools seem to be another tradition we’re preserving. The island’s hospital, really just a large clinic, was destroyed during the outbreak. Janet is midway through setting up a new hospital out of a string of small hotels and smaller offices to the south of the orphanage. Why there? Those buildings have freight elevators large enough to carry a hospital bed.
The Mansfield-Ferny Estate, which now includes a putative agricultural school along with the chicken farm, has claimed the grassland, woods, and lakes to the west and north of Friday Harbour, and up to our back gate. Eastward, we have the school, though Chester has annexed every building around it for use as the central library. Eventually, the current students will age out of the school, but the library will become the basis for the university Aisha is already putting together.
Every night, twenty-five of the children attend a formal dinner at the island’s snazziest, and only, restaurant. The children, and any invited adult guests, are expected to wear their best clothes and act decorously. This means no crown jewels, weapons have to be checked at the door, and no reading, even if your name is Tarquin. While I appreciated the importance of preserving the old traditions, the idea sounded far too much like every dinner at my old school to make me look forward to it.
The restaurant is run by Mustafa. It used to be a mid-market diner situated next to what is now the convalescent home. In addition to producing all the school meals, the restaurant also provides catering for the medical staff and their patients. Eventually, a few harvests from now, the concept of choosing from a menu will return, as will paying for a meal. For the moment, you ate what you were given and weren’t surprised that it was fish.
The children were already there, talking quietly under Nilda’s stern gaze from the top-table. Otherwise, the only other diners were a handful of medics. Janine was waiting just inside the door to take us to our seats at the top table. So was Chester, who took my arm and led me into a reasonably dark corner close to the kitchen door where Eamonn was waiting.
“The wanderer returns,” Eamonn said. “And you’ve not lost any more appendages. Have yourself a seat.”
“I think I’m meant to be at the high table,” I said, looking over at the long table by the window, where Kim, Joseph, and Wendy had joined Nilda.
“Ah, but we wanted to have an official word with you,” Eamonn said. He moved his foot, nudging his bag to produce a familiar clink of glass.
“Well, if it’s official, I don’t have much choice,” I said, taking the chair opposite. I was sure I’d get in trouble for it later, but that, as they say, was later. “How are you guys? How’s Greta?”
“The bab’s overdue,” Eamonn said. “Neither of us can wait.”
“Any week now for us,” Chester said. “Hence why we’re hiding in the corner. It’s about as close to a night off, or a night out, as we’ll get for a while.”
“You’re not supposed to be sitting there,” Janine said to me as she placed a jug of water and two glasses on the table. “Everyone has to sit where they’re told. That’s the rules.” She walked off, leaving me sans glass.
“She’s waiting tables as a punishment after trying to recreate the Wars of the Roses,” Chester said.
“He’s not kidding,” Eamonn said. “She’s in the House of York. Two nights ago, she led a midnight raid against the House of Lancaster. Fortunately, pillows were the weapon of choice, but it was a real mess.”
Eamonn took his glass and filled it below the table. “Get yourself on the outside of that, big man.”
“Should I ask what it is?”
“We’re calling it Short Island Iced Tea,” Chester said.
I took a cautious sip. It was minty, with a hint of cardamom, neither of which entirely hid the chemical aftertaste. “It’s like licking a duck, and then being kicked by a mule. You’ve got an illegal still?”
“Ah, no. Not illegal,” Eamonn said. “The chemistry classroom has one to make alcohol for medicinal purposes. This is part of a batch that failed quality control.”
