need-profile.
– No one, said Hannah. He’s an ordinary American. He’s seen us on TV, like everyone else on the planet. People are beginning to see the results. They’re impressed, that’s all.
Leo’s problem was cynicism.
As the tram slid out of Harbourville, the nerviness Hannah had been experiencing since her first glimpse of ground level became shot through with pure panic. It was six months since she’d left Head Office. It gave her a shuddery sense of inverse vertigo to be this low down, a stab of danger, as though theground might chasm on you, suck you in: whoop, gone. Flushed down, like waste. A gaggle of elderly people at the front of the tram were chattering excitedly and waving scuba equipment. Members of the Harbourville Over-Sixties’ Feel Real Club, according to their sweatshirts. Hannah’s mother had toyed with the Feel Real Club, but decided her health wouldn’t allow it. She approved, though. It showed that you didn’t have to go to Florida, she said, to live high on the hog.
Hannah stared out at the flat farmlands. This was pineapple country, the fruit growing in spiky rows. When the tram passed an ostrich farm, a whole flock of flouncy-bummed birds scattered in panic on muscular legs. Their brains were smaller than a chicken’s. The nerviness wouldn’t flatten itself. Hoping for a distraction, she opened her laptop and trawled through the transcripts of a few more Munchie calls. There was a woman accusing her step-daughter of stealing her artificial nail kit. How had that got through? A man whose twin brother refused to enter into a timeshare, threatening fratricide. A crater worker complaining of skin eruptions and balance problems: Hannah marked it for referral. There had been a lot of those lately.
Mass hysteria again, like the geologists.
As the tram slowed, and the pineapple fields gave way to okra and lemon grass, the agoraphobia inched upwards, constricting her lungs and throat. She clasped her mask and applied it to her face.
– All right there, love? asked the tanned, dapper gent sitting next to her. He was clutching a wheeled caddy filled with golfing clubs.
Hannah nodded through the translucent mask that covered her nose and mouth. Breathed rhythmically. If she stayed that way, she wouldn’t have to talk to him.
– I chose this morning, first thing, he said eagerly. Cos I want to make sure they finish that golf course, I do! The thing that puzzles me is (he leaned closer to her, conspiratorially,and looked at her with bright eager eyes set deep in his tanned face) who are they, these people?
Hannah looked blank. What was he on about? What people? She tried to convey her question with an eye-movement above the mask.
– Who are they? he repeated. Who are this five per cent lot? The ones choosing B and not A?
She’d wondered herself, in an idle way, but knew she’d find out soon enough: Munchhausen’s would be processing their questionnaires, afterwards. They’d probably turn out to be the usual suspects – the ‘difficult customers’ classed as Marginals. You can’t have winners without losers.
– Mystery, said the man, more to himself than to Hannah, and sighed. One of the seven wonders of the world.
He got off at the next stop, his clubs chinking.
Hannah took off her mask, yawned, and peered out of the window again. She could smell the lavender of St Placid.
– Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold, she murmured, echoing Wesley Pike.
Her boss liked to quote poetry. Outside she could see pylons, and the air-crystals glittered mauve.
Tilda was smaller than Hannah remembered. Hannah spotted her through the window, on the platform, scanning the carriages. Her tilted face was the narrow, questioning shape of a papaya.
– Hello, Ma, said Hannah, stepping out into muggy warmish air.
An awkward moment followed: Hannah bent to kiss Tilda’s papery, powdered cheek but somehow bungled it because of the crush around them and it turned into a fumbling
– No one, said Hannah. He’s an ordinary American. He’s seen us on TV, like everyone else on the planet. People are beginning to see the results. They’re impressed, that’s all.
Leo’s problem was cynicism.
As the tram slid out of Harbourville, the nerviness Hannah had been experiencing since her first glimpse of ground level became shot through with pure panic. It was six months since she’d left Head Office. It gave her a shuddery sense of inverse vertigo to be this low down, a stab of danger, as though theground might chasm on you, suck you in: whoop, gone. Flushed down, like waste. A gaggle of elderly people at the front of the tram were chattering excitedly and waving scuba equipment. Members of the Harbourville Over-Sixties’ Feel Real Club, according to their sweatshirts. Hannah’s mother had toyed with the Feel Real Club, but decided her health wouldn’t allow it. She approved, though. It showed that you didn’t have to go to Florida, she said, to live high on the hog.
Hannah stared out at the flat farmlands. This was pineapple country, the fruit growing in spiky rows. When the tram passed an ostrich farm, a whole flock of flouncy-bummed birds scattered in panic on muscular legs. Their brains were smaller than a chicken’s. The nerviness wouldn’t flatten itself. Hoping for a distraction, she opened her laptop and trawled through the transcripts of a few more Munchie calls. There was a woman accusing her step-daughter of stealing her artificial nail kit. How had that got through? A man whose twin brother refused to enter into a timeshare, threatening fratricide. A crater worker complaining of skin eruptions and balance problems: Hannah marked it for referral. There had been a lot of those lately.
Mass hysteria again, like the geologists.
As the tram slowed, and the pineapple fields gave way to okra and lemon grass, the agoraphobia inched upwards, constricting her lungs and throat. She clasped her mask and applied it to her face.
– All right there, love? asked the tanned, dapper gent sitting next to her. He was clutching a wheeled caddy filled with golfing clubs.
Hannah nodded through the translucent mask that covered her nose and mouth. Breathed rhythmically. If she stayed that way, she wouldn’t have to talk to him.
– I chose this morning, first thing, he said eagerly. Cos I want to make sure they finish that golf course, I do! The thing that puzzles me is (he leaned closer to her, conspiratorially,and looked at her with bright eager eyes set deep in his tanned face) who are they, these people?
Hannah looked blank. What was he on about? What people? She tried to convey her question with an eye-movement above the mask.
– Who are they? he repeated. Who are this five per cent lot? The ones choosing B and not A?
She’d wondered herself, in an idle way, but knew she’d find out soon enough: Munchhausen’s would be processing their questionnaires, afterwards. They’d probably turn out to be the usual suspects – the ‘difficult customers’ classed as Marginals. You can’t have winners without losers.
– Mystery, said the man, more to himself than to Hannah, and sighed. One of the seven wonders of the world.
He got off at the next stop, his clubs chinking.
Hannah took off her mask, yawned, and peered out of the window again. She could smell the lavender of St Placid.
– Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold, she murmured, echoing Wesley Pike.
Her boss liked to quote poetry. Outside she could see pylons, and the air-crystals glittered mauve.
Tilda was smaller than Hannah remembered. Hannah spotted her through the window, on the platform, scanning the carriages. Her tilted face was the narrow, questioning shape of a papaya.
– Hello, Ma, said Hannah, stepping out into muggy warmish air.
An awkward moment followed: Hannah bent to kiss Tilda’s papery, powdered cheek but somehow bungled it because of the crush around them and it turned into a fumbling
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