Dark Lullaby by Polly Ho-Yen (the gingerbread man read aloud TXT) 📗

that at first was mumbled and lost and make it into something coherent and meaningful. The most tender and significant utterances were made quietly, just under the breath. That was another reason why I was doing the job instead of a computer programme; I could sense when it was worth the trouble to clean up a file.

I recognised the repeated static and whir of a workSphere and removed that from the audio too. But it was still not quite clear enough.

In the end, noticing the time, I logged it into the file I’d compiled on Genevieve to return to later.

* * *

Evie and Seb had arrived ahead of me. I saw them before they saw me, waiting at a table in the busy restaurant, not talking, not touching.

‘How was it?’ I asked, kissing Evie on the cheek. She took a little too long to react, as though she were waking from sleep. Evie had blue shadows under her eyes, reminding me of the way a bruise blooms, and Seb sat stiffly, his shoulders hunched, his neck cramped.

Neither of them answered. Evie gave a little sigh. Almost like a moan. But it was lost in the noise of the diners around us, and then Evie smiled, kissing me back, squeezing my hand. Her lips were perfectly red, as though she had just applied lipstick. The ruby mouth, alongside her dark hair that sat in waves just above her shoulders, gave her the air of old-time movie star, beautiful, pale and fragile.

‘Hi, Seb.’

‘Good to see you, Kit. How’s things?’

‘Oh, you know. Fine. Good. Nothing to report, really.’

‘Work going well?’ Seb asked, and I was struck for a moment by the thought that when Evie had gained a partner, I had gained a watchful, concerned older brother.

‘Yeah, busy. Good.’ As none of them knew the details of life documenting, Dad, Evie and Seb believed that I was a writer for one of the Spheres’ news pages.

‘Great.’ Seb smiled tightly, as though his face wouldn’t let him relax into a grin.

Evie was fiddling with her napkin.

‘Are you okay? Is there something…?’ I said slowly.

I let the question dwindle and die. Evie reached for Seb’s hand, I saw how tightly they clung to one another.

‘Just a hard day,’ Evie said, whilst looking to Seb for something. Comfort? Reassurance?

‘Do you want to talk about it?’

‘Oh no,’ Evie said. ‘Let’s not. How’s work going?’ she asked brightly, too brightly, oblivious to Seb’s question only moments before.

I had my cue. I’d become inventive over the years and had added characters and back story to my fictional work life. I told them about Ted, ‘my editor.’ I imagined him near bald but with a whisper of ginger hair, and a paunch that he was almost proud of. I created an imaginary tussle we’d had over the stories that I’d worked on. Ted featured so much when I told my family about work that sometimes I wished that he did exist. I’d painted him as a mentor and a friend, one that irritated me with his directness sometimes.

We were in safe territory now, talking about my job. It was somewhere we didn’t want to leave in a hurry. Seb visibly relaxed into his chair as he told us a story about his first boss, who he was still in touch with. Colour returned to Evie’s cheeks as her husband became animated.

Only later, when Seb had left the table, and after she’d consumed a large portion of the red wine we had ordered by the bottle, did Evie lean across the table conspiratorially, her elbows knocking against the dessert plates.

‘It was awful, Kit. Today. Just awful.’

I squeezed her hand. ‘I’m sorry. What happened?’

‘Seb says we just got off to a bad start. We’re trying to put it behind us.’

‘That’s a good idea, I’m sure you’re right. Don’t be too hard on yourselves.’

‘He didn’t want me to tell you. He doesn’t want to tell anyone.’

I paused, sensing Evie wanted to talk.

‘He doesn’t want us to be negative about it and if we start telling people about it then we won’t be able to help it.’

‘Well, I suppose he’s got a point,’ I said. ‘But it’s not great if you can’t talk about it, get it out of your system. Vent.’

‘That’s what I think,’ Evie said, her voice rising indignantly.

‘What happened?’ I asked again.

‘Well, they did lots of tests, took bloods, that kind of thing. Examinations. I mean we have to get that all done, you know, it wasn’t that bad. They talked about the first lot of drugs I have to take. There could be all kinds of different side effects but I was expecting that. I mean it sounds a lot when you hear it all at once but…’

Evie let her voice trail off for a moment. I knew she was downplaying what the effects of the drugs might be.

‘And they talked about the training we’d need to undertake too, to minimise the chance of extraction. I mean the information is all really useful. Some of it’s going to be quite practical, like about feeding and sleep patterns and then there’s more moral and ethical stuff about how our behaviour as parents affects our children’s development. There’ll be lots about language acquisition, that sort of thing. It’s kind of fascinating.’

‘Sounds… good.’

‘Yes, the content is good. And the way they presented it made me feel that we could do it, you know, avoid extraction, it really gave me hope.’

At just that moment, as though they were listening in on our conversation, the Spheres in the restaurant stirred into action and an OSIP film began to play out.

Extractions are for the good of everyone, the text appeared across the screens in bold, blue letters. Then the film turned to an animation of child walking away from the dark outlines of their parental figures down a path of light, towards a vision of other children, smiling and care-free. More words darted across the screen amongst the faces of the children, almost subliminally: Highest standard