The Beneath (7 page)

“Sit down, Foggy! Keep still. Can you come and hold him for a moment? He’s going to knock us both over.” He was talking to Aria, not me. “Come on – can you hold Foggy’s lead so that I can get Lily over to the bench?”

The pain was coming in waves. Had I broken it? I clenched my eyes tightly shut. “I’ll help Lily to walk,” said Aria.

Before I knew what was happening, she had her arm round my back, taking the weight of my bad leg, and was leading me towards the benches on the nearest footpath. Disappointment flooded through me – where was Will?

Aria was surprisingly strong, and she deftly manoeuvred me on to the bench before kneeling down by my foot and prodding and flexing my ankle.

“Owww!” I yelped again as she turned it too far to the
right. “What are you doing? What do you know about ankles?”

“We all know how to do this.” I flash a quick smile at her. “Nothing broken,” I add, loudly enough for him to hear. “Just a sprain. You’ll need to get a bandage on it, but it should be perfectly fine in a day or two.”

He ties up the big hairy dog a safe distance away and comes over.

“So it’s OK, is it, Lily? Will you be able to get home all right? Do you want me to help?”

I am surprised at how pink Lily suddenly goes, and although she opens her mouth to speak nothing comes out.

“I can manage her,” I answer quickly on her behalf.

I hope he won’t think that she’s frail. I’m pleased that for the first time since I came Above I can actually be useful.

“OK, well, if everything is going to be all right, I’ll leave you girls to it. Thanks for finding the ball for me.”

I smile at him as he puts the ball in his pocket and unties the dog.

The pain had fogged my brain, and I couldn’t work out why Will was leaving and Aria was pressing her hands into my ankle. Had he really held me for a moment? I shook my head to try and clear it.

“Thank you for your help. I can manage, honestly,”
she said to him.

“No worries.” He turned and walked away, dragging Foggy with him.

“We were lucky there,” said Aria, hoisting me upright. “I’ll finish treating this back at the house.”

“Lucky?” I gasped as I tried to put my foot down. “Are you having a laugh?”

“You can’t appear weak. We women must always be strong.”

She wanted me to be strong. I wanted to be carried home by Will. Our cultures were proving to be very different after all. I sighed as Will turned through the park gate in the distance. He didn’t look back.

CHAPTER 6

We didn’t talk much as Aria helped me back to the flat. I still couldn’t process how things had changed so quickly. As soon as we were in the kitchen she took control though, rummaging through Marjorie’s first-aid kit until she found what she wanted. There was a lot of muttering as she dug things out of the big, green plastic box.

“I can’t believe that you have so many of these – we hardly ever see them! And these too.” She held up a pack of safety pins. “You’re so lucky.”

She knelt in front of me and took my ankle in her hands.

“Please be careful! It really hurts, you know. Are you sure I’ve not broken it?”

“No, you’ll be fine. I just need to press right … here!”

A white-hot pain streaked up my lower leg and I bit my lip hard to stop from crying out. But before I could
snatch my foot out of her hands she changed her grip and pressed again. There was a distinct twanging noise and it suddenly felt much, much better.

“There,” she said, winding a bandage tightly round it. “No lasting damage done. You should be perfectly all right now, and we can take off the bandage tomorrow.”

I was so surprised that it no longer hurt I forgot I was annoyed with her.

“How did you learn to do that?” I asked, putting my weight gingerly on it and finding it was indeed perfectly OK.

Aria shrugged as she started to put all the bits and pieces back into the first-aid kit.

“One of the few things they teach us to do is heal,” she said. “It’s part of our function. No girl could ever expect to get a good Assignment if she wasn’t a good healer.” She paused for a moment. “And no girl would ever expect to get a good Assignment if she wasn’t strong. I’m sorry if I upset you. I didn’t mean to.”

I felt really mean for my ungrateful thoughts earlier.

“I’m sorry that I was a bit snappy with you. It was all just a bit of a surprise.” I did a circuit of the kitchen without feeling a single twinge from my ankle. “And I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Shall I make us some lunch?”

I resisted the urge to ask any questions until we were sitting at the table with our beans and cheese on toast. I didn’t like to disturb her eating – everything I gave her seemed to be a feast, so I kept quiet until she
was nearly done.

“Right, come on, it’s time for a few answers. What was all that about today?”

“What do you mean?” she mumbled through her final mouthful.

“I mean, why all the sudden interest in the Tower of London?”

She carefully scraped up every crumb from her plate as she finished chewing. Finally she looked up at me.

“It’s our most sacred legend,” she said slowly, “and I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t want me to share it with the Aboves. But I suppose that doesn’t matter now.”

She paused for a moment and ran her finger around the plate before continuing. “I didn’t think that it was real – I assumed it was just a story. And now I find that it’s true.”

“So what’s it all about?”

“This is our story of the ‘Beginning’ – how the Community came to be where we are.” She paused for a second, looking towards the window, then slowly stood up. She carefully brushed all the crumbs from her lap and took the few short steps to the light. Holding gently on to the windowsill she stared up towards the sunshine. I was beginning to wonder if she had changed her mind about telling me the story, but then I saw her shoulders rise as she took a deep breath. Her head dipped for a moment. I could feel myself leaning forward in my chair, waiting.

When she started to speak her voice was low.

“The Beginning…” She paused again, and something about her tone sent a shiver down my spine.

“In the Beginning there was the Man. The Man was tried for crimes he did not commit and was imprisoned in the deepest dungeon of the oldest prison of the city – the Tower. His cell was an old cave, overrun with creatures whose eyes glittered like coal. The Man knew that he would die of the cold and the damp if the Executioner didn’t come first. He argued to have his case tried again, but was refused. Realising that he must evade their unjust punishment he vowed to leave, but no one had ever escaped from the Tower. The doors were too thick, the walls too high, the moat too wide. But the Man would not be defeated.

“He planned and plotted and found a way out following the creatures who invaded his cell at high tide. Crawling on his belly through a long narrow tunnel, black as pitch, he found himself in a chamber above the high-water mark. The air was as sweet as honey, and nourished his candle when he lit it. From that meagre light he saw that the chamber continued.

“The creatures led him further and further from the Tower, into the depths of low caves, through impossibly tight crevices and sumps filled with water, and the Man began to doubt that there was an end. But finally the creatures emerged in a cavern so vast he could not see the far wall. It was dry and it was warm. The Man knew
he could stay.

“If he was to return to the city he would be hanged. All his family and friends had either perished or betrayed him. It was time to start again.

“By watching and following the creatures the Man soon became familiar with the maze of caves, and under cover of darkness was able to creep back up to the surface. From the depths of an old, dark well he emerged to find air putrid with smog, and a cacophony of noise from the docks piercing his ears. The Man yearned for his quiet, clean cavern, but he needed companions.

“He searched out those abandoned by society and took them back below. The Man became the Farmer – a farmer of people – and over time the people grew and flourished, exploring further caves and eventually digging their own. They wanted for nothing. The Community had been formed.”

As she had been speaking Aria had continued staring out of the window, but then her shoulders relaxed as she finally turned back towards me.

“And that is the legend of the Beginning. It’s read to us every Sunday and we all get to learn it and repeat it if we’re asked. No one must ever forget the injustice of the Aboves towards the First Farmer and those later.”

“What happened later?”

Her eyes suddenly glistened. “There was a plague. Too many of us died.”

“Oh, that’s horrible. So how long has the Community
been down there? Do you even know?

Aria shrugged briefly. “Hundreds of years, that’s all I know.”

“Wow.” I sat back, looking at her. “It’s a lot to take in. So he set up the Community as a refuge, taking in people who felt like he did?”

She nodded. “A whole new community, a new way of life, with new rules and a new purpose.”

“So has no one else left over the years? You can’t be the first one to run away, surely?”

“People have disappeared before, but no one ever mentions them. There are stories though – does no one up Above suspect anything about us?”

“Absolutely nothing that I’ve heard. We could check on the Internet to see if there are any rumours out there, but I guess you’ve done a good job at keeping things secret.” I hesitated for a moment, but there was one question I was dying to ask. “So what were the creatures he followed? What helped him?”

“It was the mice. He followed a stream of mice.”

I shuddered.

“Oh, don’t think that.” Aria smiled at me. “The mice are very useful in lots of ways. The meat can be a little tough if they are too old, but in a stew they taste delicious.”

“What! You can’t be serious.” I tried to keep my voice down. “That’s gross.”

“It’s what they had to eat. If you have a choice of only mushrooms, bats and mice, mice is the best option. Bats
taste horrible.” She pulled a face as I tried not to gag.

“Do you still eat that now?”

Aria nodded. “Not just that though. The Listeners bring food down when they can – things that have been thrown away up here. Sometimes we get sacks of the sandwiches packed in little cardboard boxes. They’re my favourite.”

I wondered what the supermarkets and coffee shops would think if they knew that their donated sandwiches actually ended up underground. “The Listeners must get into trouble occasionally,” I said. “That food is supposed to be for the homeless.”

“I think they do sometimes.” For a second or two she stared out of the window again, looking up towards the small patch of sky that was visible between the buildings. “Everyone respects the Listeners. They do a job that very few people want to do, but only the smartest get selected to do it.”

There was something wistful in her tone.

“Is that what you wanted to do?” I asked.

“Ha!” she said, shaking her head. “As if I’d have the chance! Yes, I’d love to have been a Listener, and I know I’m smart enough. I wanted to come up here to check that everything was safe, to get the essentials for us all to live as we want. But the Farmer’s rules say no.”

I waited for a moment to see if she was going to continue, but she carried on staring out of the window. I gave her a quick nudge.

“Which rules, Aria? Tell me.”

She shook her head again. “I never wanted to leave my world, but the Farmer has made it too dangerous a place to be. And now I’m up here and see all the things that women can do, but that we are never allowed to do, I wonder what would be better – him gone, or me?”

There was a real note of bitterness in her voice.

“Come on then, tell me,” I said. “You mentioned yesterday that you had been given your Assignment. What had they Assigned you to do that made you run away?”

I can’t tell her the whole truth, not yet.

“I was Assigned to be a Breeder,” I whispered.

Lily’s mouth drops open.

“You mean, having to have kids? At sixteen? No way!”

“I’m not lying, I promise.”

“No,” she says. “I mean, I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. That’s terrible.”

And then she asks me the question that makes me shudder to answer.

“Do you get to choose the father?” Her voice is hesitant, her hands still pressed against her cheeks. “Who do you have to have the kids with?”

“No, there’s no choice. It’s usually one of the Elders. I don’t even want to think about it.”

“The Elders?” she squeaks. “I’m so sorry, Aria, that’s worse than terrible.”

Lily rubs my arm in a way that is weirdly comforting. I try to reach my hand out towards hers, but it feels wrong, so I drop it back in my lap. She doesn’t notice, but carries on talking.

“I never guessed that. That’s a spectacularly good reason to want to run away. I can’t begin to imagine…”

She breaks off, looking at the floor. We sit quietly for a moment, and I’m lost in my thoughts. How on earth have I managed to make such a mess of things?

“Women here don’t usually have their kids until they are well into their twenties or thirties, sometimes even forties,” Lily says.

“Forties! How is that even possible? How many kids do women up here have?”

“Most of them? Two, I guess. That’s about average.”

Two! For two maybe the Assignment would be bearable. I shake my head in disbelief.

“So how many do you have to have then?” asks Lily. “What’s the average for the Community?”

I think of the dormitories, the rows and rows of little beds, with too many of them empty. I remember the women, exhausted and despairing, forever pregnant.

“Fifteen,” I say quietly. “We’re allowed to stop after fifteen.”