Tina untied her waistwrap and dived straight down into the warm water. Whoosh! Off went the starbird over the water and away into forest with a clatter of wings and whitelantern branches, and a series of loud cries: Raa! Raa! Raa! I followed Tina. We didn’t bother with oysters. We’d taken the easy ones last time anyway. Instead we raced across to the far side of the pool and back again, pushing through the floating streamers of the water lanterns when we could, or diving under them when they were too thick. Down there under the surface it felt like we were flying over those pinnacles of rock that went down and down, and over shining water lanterns and wavyweed, with green and red tiger fish and tiny bluefish swimming through it in shoals. Down and down, shoals below shoals: Deep Pool wasn’t like Greatpool or Longpool where you could dive and touch the bottom. In Deep Pool you couldn’t make out where it ended.
‘So have you thought of some more things for us to talk about?’ she asked me, after we’d climbed out again.
She threw me half a bunch of water lantern nuts.
‘We’re here,’ I said, after munching for a bit. ‘Have you ever heard our Jeff say that? We’re here. We’re really here.’
Tina didn’t laugh at this like Met did. She narrowed her eyes. She thought carefully about what I might mean. Then she nodded.
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I’ve heard him. We’re here. And . . .?’
‘Most people in Family never think about it. You do your chores, you have something to eat, you have a bit of a gossip and a moan, you have something else to eat, you have a slip, you go to sleep . . . and they never think once about where they are, or where they might be.’
‘I’d say they dream a lot about where they might be.’
‘They wish they were back on Earth, you mean? They wish they were with the Shadow People. They wish a boat would come down from sky and take them away from all their sorrows. Is that what you mean?’
‘Yes. All that.’
‘That’s the same thing as not thinking about where they are or where they might be,’ I said. ‘That way they don’t even have to try.’
Tina frowned.
‘But wouldn’t you like to be on Earth? With the light in sky and everything?’
How we all longed for that bright light. How we’d always longed for it.
‘Yeah, of course,’ I said. ‘But there’s no point in going on about it, is there? I’m not on Earth, am I? I might never get there in my lifetime. I’m in Eden. We’re in Eden. This is what we’ve got.’
I waved my hand at the scene in front of us: that little jewel bat leaving a sparkly trail as it skimmed the surface of the water with the tips of its fingers; that whitelantern branch hanging down over its own reflection; those tiny shimmery little fish nipping in and out of the tangle of roots round the pool’s edge.
Hoom! Hoom! went the starbird off in forest.
Aaaah! Aaaah! came back the reply.
‘Yeah,’ said Tina, ‘this is what we’ve got.’
She moved over near me, and looked right up close into my face.
It was different now to last time. Sometimes boys and girls did a slide together just to stop themselves having to talk, and stop themselves having to notice what was happening. Sometimes it was like going to sleep, or stuffing your face with food. Sometimes it was like hiding from the leopard up the bloody tree. That was why I hadn’t wanted to do it before. But right now, if we did it, it would be different. It wouldn’t be like hiding away from the leopard. It would be like facing it. I leaned forward to kiss her sweet cruel funny mouth. I leaned forward. She moved towards me. I . . .
Paaaaarp! Paaaarp! Paaaarp!
The sound came from Family and echoed round the rocks. Paaaaarp! Paaaarp! Paaaarp! An ugly sound on many different notes that didn’t fit together. Paaaaarp! Paaaarp! Paaaarp! Up from Circle Clearing. Paaaaarp! Paaaarp! Paaaarp!
‘Gela’s tits!’ hissed Tina, sitting back up.
We’d heard it many times before. It was the signal for whole Family to come together. It was Any Virsry. Oldest must have finally agreed on their days and their years. They must have decided that this was the moment — this was three hundred and sixty-five days after the last Any Virsry — and called for Caroline and the rest of Council to get out the hollowbranch horns and get hold of all the newhairs and young men they could find to blow them.
Paaaaarp! Paaaarp! Paaaarp!
It was an ugly noise but it carried well. It carried all over the valley, querulous like Oldest themselves. If there were woollybuck hunters up by the snows at Cold Path they’d hear it. If there were people digging out blackglass out by Exit Falls they’d hear it. If there were people up by Dixon Snowslug looking for stumpcandy, they’d hear it and know what it meant.
Paaaaarp! Paaaarp! Paaaarp!
‘We don’t have to go straight away,’ Tina said.
‘We don’t have to go at all,’ I said.
She looked at me.
‘That’s true. What could they do to us?’
‘Nothing really. Nothing much.’
Tina smiled ruefully.
‘No. But if we don’t go now, that’s all we’ll be thinking about, isn’t it? The fact that we’ve been called to Any Virsry and haven’t gone.’
I nodded. Family was inside us, not just out there in the world. If we didn’t do what Family asked, Family out there wouldn’t need to say anything, because it would be accusing us already from inside our own skin. Kissing would be no fun, slipping would be no fun. I felt my dick shrivel just at the thought of it.
So we started climbing up the rocks away from Deep Pool and back to Family.
London was at the beginning of their waking. Blueside had been right in middle of their sleep. In Brooklyn, only the youngmums and oldies and clawfeet and little kids had been there in group, because everyone else was out on a big groundbuck hunt up Alps way. But it didn’t matter whether it was your waking time or your sleeping time or whether you were inside or outside of Family Fence. Everyone was now moving towards Circle Clearing.
As we came back through Family, we saw oldies, youngmums, little kids, newhairs, people who’d been sleeping, people who’d been eating, people who’d just been starting a new waking, all already on their way. And, though we couldn’t see them, we knew that, across forest, hunters and scavengers would be abandoning whatever it was they were doing too and turning back, though some would have a couple of wakings’ walk ahead of them. All the people in Eden, all the people in the world, were heading for Circle Clearing. That was how it was: you could be out in forest, or up on the edges of the hills, or over by Exit Falls where the water goes roaring down into darkness, but wherever you were, and whoever you were, you were still in Family.
By Dixon Stream, passing through old Jeffo’s place, with his logs and his gluepit and his skins, we caught up with Gerry and little Jeff.
Gerry looked at me like he always did, checking out my mood, getting ready to adjust his own.
‘Bloody Any Virsry!’ he said, as soon as he was sure that I was annoyed, and he slashed at a low-flying bat with a stick.