‘When there’s music softly playing,’ crooned Judy Garland, ‘and I’m sitting on your lap, must you yah-ta-ta, yah-ta-ta, yah-ta-ta, yah-ta-ta, yap, yap, yap . . . ’
‘Mind if I sit here?’ A real, living female voice in competition with a dead, long-ago one.
He looked up. It was Hayes. He motioned her to go ahead, apprehensive that she would ask him how he was, a question he wasn’t sure he could answer without breaking down and telling the whole story. But as soon as Hayes took her seat, it became clear that she was only interested in the surface of the table, to rest a thick book on. Glancing at the pages as he ate his food, Peter identified the patterns of Sudoku, Kakuro, Hitori, Fillomino and other mathematical puzzles, neatly completed in pencil. Hayes bent over the book with an eraser clutched between her thumb and forefinger. With fastidious care, she began to rub out the pencil marks.
‘It’s so nice to close your lips with mine,’ cooed Bing and Judy in perfect harmony.
Five minutes later, Peter’s plate was empty and Hayes’s iced coffee was untouched, forgotten. She was hunched over, absorbed in her task. Her mouth was slightly open, her downcast eyes had soft, luxurious lashes; she impressed Peter as prettier and more soulful than he’d previously thought. He was touched, deeply touched, deeply moved all of a sudden, by her altruistic labour.
‘That’s very considerate of you,’ he heard himself say.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Very community-minded.’
She stared at him, uncomprehending.
‘Rubbing out the pencil marks,’ he explained, wishing he hadn’t spoken. ‘It gives other people a chance to do the puzzles.’
She wrinkled her brow. ‘I’m not doing it for other people. I’m gonna do these puzzles again myself.’ And she returned to the work at hand.
Peter sat back and drank his tea. Hayes’s serene focus no longer struck him as attractive. Instead, there was something creepy about it. OK, he wasn’t a puzzle man himself, so the appeal of filling in those squares was already mysterious to him, but he appreciated that it presented a pleasant challenge for other minds. But doing the same puzzle over and over . . .
A burst of laughter from the other side of the room failed to disturb Hayes’s concentration. It came from Tuska, Maneely and the guy who’d escorted Peter back from the settlement, what was his name – Conway. They appeared to be playing a game of rudimentary magic with three plastic cups and a rivet. ‘How’d you do that? How’d you do that?’ Conway kept saying, to Tuska’s delight. Elsewhere, USIC personnel reclined in armchairs, flipping through Fly Fishing, Classic Cartoons, Vogue and The Chemical Engineer. Peter remembered Tuska’s ‘Légion étrangère’ lecture: It’s best if you’ve got a team of individuals who can deal with being in permanent limbo. People who won’t go crazy. Maybe Hayes was a prime example of a person who wouldn’t go crazy. Someone who did her job, caused no trouble beyond a few pages torn out of a lesbian porn magazine, and, when she retired to her quarters, could while away the hours and days and months on perpetually erased puzzles.
‘ . . . of Crosby’s fabled modesty that he was able to describe such a sublime work of art as “fluffy” and “a novelty”,’ the DJ was intoning. ‘We’ll now hear an unissued alternate take. Listen out for Bing stumbling on the word “annuity” and other evidences of inadequate rehearsal. Worth it, though, for the slightly closer proximity of Garland to the microphone, allowing us to fantasise that she’s right in the room with us . . . ’
‘Sorry to interrupt you again,’ said Peter.
‘No problem,’ said Hayes, rubbing out just one more numeral before looking up.
‘I was wondering about these music broadcasts. Are they old?’
She blinked, then opened her ears to register the sound. ‘Very old,’ she said. ‘Those singers, I don’t think they’re even alive anymore.’
‘No, I meant, are these shows, with the announcements and everything, put together by someone here at USIC, or did they already exist?’
Hayes cast an eye around the mess hall. ‘Rosen does them,’ she said. ‘He’s not here right now. He’s a surveyor and draughtsman. You’ve probably seen his drawings of the Centrifuge & Power Facility displayed in the Projects Hall. Awesomely accurate work. I still stand and look at it sometimes.’ She shrugged. ‘His music I can take or leave. It’s background noise to me. I’m glad he likes it so much. Everybody’s got to like something, I guess.’ She didn’t sound convinced.
A fresh flush of pain went through Peter – the memory of Bea’s message again. ‘The Mother,’ he said, trying to get a grip.
‘Excuse me?’
‘The nickname you suggested for the Centrifuge & Power Utility.’
‘Facility,’ she corrected him with a smile. She closed her puzzle book and slipped the eraser into a pocket of her shirt. ‘Nobody calls it the Mother. I know that. They still call it the Big Brassiere. Or actually the BB.’ Preparing to leave, she hugged her book to her bosom. ‘No sense getting upset. As my mom used to say, Don’t sweat the small stuff.’
When in distress, don’t self-obsess, reach out. Bea’s motto. Their motto as a couple, actually.
‘Do you miss your mom?’
Hayes hugged her book tighter, reflective. ‘I guess. She died a long time ago. She would’ve been proud of me, I’m sure, being chosen for this mission. But I had a good job already when she died, so she was proud already. It’s not like I was a deadbeat.’