‘And Harry slipped with his sisters,’ said Stoop, ‘and . . .’
‘But Tommy said we must remember that a man should not slip with his sisters,’ interrupted Gela, ‘nor his daughters, nor even his cousins, not if there are others to slip with.’
‘And Suzie gave birth to two daughters who lived: Kate and Martha. And Clare gave birth to three daughters: Tina, Candy and Jade,’ said Mitch.
‘And Lucy gave birth to three daughters, Little Lucy and Jane and Angela. And Harry was father to all of these, so he’s our Second Father. Just like Tommy, he’s the father of us all.’
I yawned, and John yawned, and Gerry yawned in imitation of John.
‘And Harry had to slip with these girls too,’ said Mitch, ‘though they were his own daughters, and the children of those unions were Janny and Mary and . . . and . . .’
A look of panic came over that bitter old shrivelled batface of his . . . He’d forgotten! The long string that held his precious years together was broken! He couldn’t remember the next name in his list.
And then he smiled. Of course, of course.
‘The children of those unions were Janny and Mary and Mitch . . .’
Silly old fool. The child he’d forgotten was himself! The older people laughed affectionately with him. A lot of the younger people didn’t laugh at all.
But for some reason I did suddenly laugh. It came out loud and harsh. And John looked at me in surprise and then laughed too, and then of course so did Gerry, and other newhairs also took it up as well, all round the clearing.
Old Mitch noticed the mocking bark of us newhairs and turned on us, his watery blind eyes wide with distress.
‘You mock, newhairs, you mock our memories. But think of this! I’m a great-grandfather to you, and though I’m old old, one hundred and twenty years, I’m standing before you now. And listen . . .’
He coughed and spluttered and had to have his back patted by one of the helpers before he could go on.
‘And listen to this,’ he went on at last. ‘When I was young like you, I knew an old man too. He was my father’s father, and my mother’s grandfather, and I saw him standing there in front of me, just as you see me. And — listen to this! — that old man, my grandfather, was Tommy who came from Earth. I saw him, I touched him, and he came from another world beyond the stars!’
Tears of frustration were running down his face. He knew that, whatever he said, whatever threats he made, the time would soon come when he was dead, and then the time when our grandparents were dead, and then our parents. And when that point came it would be up to us whether we kept the True Story alive or let it die.
‘I saw and touched Tommy,’ old Mitch almost sobbed. ‘Think of that before you laugh, newhairs! Think of that!’
His sadness was so painful that I had to look away. Some of the younger ones around me actually wept, they felt so ashamed of laughing at him. I felt ashamed too but yet at the same time I was angry with myself for allowing the old bastard to touch my feelings like that. Gela’s tits, had he or the other two ever spared anyone else’s feelings? They spoke harshly to children. They told us we knew nothing. They prodded and poked us as if we were things.
‘The children of those unions were Janny and Mary and Mitch and . . .’ prompted Gela. She was bored and tired too, and when Mitch didn’t respond, she carried on herself. ‘And Stoop and Lu and Gela and . . .’ She named all the rest of the twenty-four brothers and sisters in her generation. ‘And Peter,’ she finished with a gasp. ‘And we were the ones who started the first seven groups in Family, and made the big fence. And we were the last to know Tommy who came from Earth, so you should remember us.’
And then at last Oldest were done. Their helpers settled them down on the ground with logs and buckskin to hold them up, and then the group reports began. One group leader after another gave their account of all the things that had happened over the year since the one hundred and sixty-second Any Virsry: the babies born; the people who’d died; the girls who’d got pregnant; the big hunts. It was boring boring. Bloody Batwing alone must have spent twenty minutes talking about that redlantern tree they’d chopped down and how they were shoving whitelantern seeds down the tubes in the hope that a whitelantern would grow up in its place.
‘Well I never!’ I whispered to John. ‘How unusual! Whoever would have thought of that!’
He smiled, and, seeing him smile, Gerry smiled too.
Two hunters from London came in from forest, so then there were only fourteen left to come, fourteen from Brooklyn still on their way back from their buck hunt out Alpway.
‘Now it’s time to discuss the Genda for Council,’ said Caroline, when the last report was done.
And now each of the group leaders came up with things they wanted to talk about: fish getting scarce in Greatpool, a leopard seen skulking half a mile from Batwing, an argument between Blueside and Starflower about some trees, a request from London for Blueside to move their group further up Blueway, so London could have a bit more space . . .
‘We’ll help you move the Blueside fence further out,’ said London leader Julie. ‘We’re not expecting you to do it all on your own. But our group is getting bigger.’
‘You’ve been helping with that, haven’t you, eh, John?’ I whispered to John. ‘You’ve been helping London get bigger. You and that woman Martha.’
He pulled a face at me and stuck out his tongue. I laughed.
‘We’ll help you pull down the fence and move it, Blueway,’ Julie repeated.
‘No chance,’ said Blueside leader Susan, who was round and solid and stubborn, like Lava Blob. ‘We’ve worked hard to get our group all nice with shelters and everything. Why would we want to hand it all over to you lot?’
‘Yes, but we can’t help that we’re in middle of Family. We haven’t got any new forest to move into.’
‘Maybe you should split your group into two. Start a new group beyond Blueside, like we did when Starflower started at hundred and fortieth Any Virsry . . .’
But Caroline stopped the discussion.
‘This is for Council, not for now. Right now we are just deciding on the Genda. What other things are going to be on it?’
Some little kids near to where me and John were standing started a silly playfight, chasing round and round the grownups’ legs.
‘Not enough meat any more,’ said old blind Tom from Brooklyn. He was the only group leader that was a man. ‘Not enough meat, not enough fruit and seeds and stumpcandy.’
‘So what are we going to do about it?’ Caroline said. ‘What do you want us to discuss?’
‘Last useful thing we did was back at Any Virsry hundred forty-five,’ Tom said, ‘when we stopped School.’
What he was talking about was that up to hundred and forty-fifth Any Virsry, there was School for kids between six years and twelve. Every waking, all the kids came together in Circle Clearing and a grownup called Teacher told them about writing and counting and the lost things from Earth and all that stuff. But at hundred and forty-fifth they’d decided they couldn’t spare kids from hunting and scavenging. So now most kids couldn’t write and Family relied on the remembering that happened at Any Virsries to pass on the old stories. There was a big argument in Council back then, apparently, when they finished with School, one of the biggest arguments ever.