Damien Broderick - Strange Attractors

what?’
He hesitated. ‘The Society.’
‘Very well, I’ll join and see what it does for me.’
He shook his head.
‘Why not?’
He shrugged.
‘We need artificial aids to stand up to reality,’ I said in what I hoped
was a reasonable tone. ‘You might give me some inkling what yours is.’
He glanced at his watch, at the door. ‘I’ll be late.’
‘You could not arrive at all,’ I said, anxious to talk further with him,
‘which would have the desired effect.’
‘They cut off the dole if you don’t interview,’ he said, very seriously.
Then he appeared to make a decision.
‘Look, give me the money for new paint and you can sit in at the
meeting tonight. Here, 9 pm. Then you’ll understand.’
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Lucy Sussex
‘All right,’ I said, fumbling with my purse.
‘See ya.’
‘See you.’
The quorum of the Lipton Village Society was fairly low, for only five
members were present that night. They were all as thin as Thursday
October, who arrived minus the dress and quickly set about
introductions.
‘This is Strongarm.’ A puny boy.
‘Jeri.’ He wore glasses and had a pale, intelligent face. I guessed he
had some form of employment, for he was (literally) better heeled than
the others.
‘Linear.’ A girl, sporting the punk rocker’s bleached blonde scalp.
‘Goosegirl.’ He had a sullen expression.
‘I’m Susan Gifford. That’s not much of a name in comparison with
yours.’
They laughed uneasily. Thursday fished a key out of his jeans
pocket and opened the padlock on the chest. I pointedly glanced away,
lest I give the impression of being inquisitive. When I looked back he
had dosed the heavy wooden lid and sat with a square of paper in his
lap. It was a sketch in crayon, a miniature template for the great map
I had vandalised.
‘Where’s the painting?’ asked Jeri.
I stared at the floor and noticed, with a feeling of mild horror, a
lump of congealed blue paint in the crack between two floorboards.
Thursday answered, to my relief, with a lie: ‘Me dole’s late, and paint’s
bloody expensive.’
‘Did you complain?’ asked Jeri.
‘Burn down the dole office!’ said Linear, in an unexpectedly little-
girl voice. I smiled at the contrast with her looks and received a glare
from Goosegirl. He opened his mouth but Jeri spoke first: ‘I’ll get the
paint.’
‘Thanks but no thanks, mate,’ said Thursday. ‘I did a spot of work
for Susan, and she paid me.’
‘Very nice,’ drawled Goosegirl, finally getting a word in, ‘but why
bring her along to the meeting? W hat’s she doing here?’
Thursday October told the truth this time.
‘Seeing how people live without drugs.’
He was still holding the sketch, and now he passed it to me,
presumably as a cue for a change of subject .
‘W hat is this a map of?’ I asked.
The L ip ton Village Society
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‘Lipton Village’, said Jeri.
‘W here is it?’
‘Not — here.’ T hat was Strongarm. ‘Not on the earth.’
It was a strange story, told hugger-mugger, with one speaker
interrupting another, so only in retrospect was I able to make it
coherent.
‘We were at school — ’
‘ — Sunshine Tech — ’
* — we hated it — ’
‘ — used to wag all the time — ’
‘Did you ever get threatened with a “special purpose” school?’ I
asked, interested.
‘W hat’s that?’ said Strongarm.
‘Somewhere to put dead-end kids and forget about them,’ said
Thursday. ‘Yeah!’
‘Oh, the truant school,’ said Jeri. ‘We got close. Then there was
Lipton Village.’
‘ — we were in Geography class — ’
‘ — almost rioting — ’
‘ — and the teacher didn’t know what to do. So he gave us a special
project.’
‘ — instead of boring Iran and Iraq — ’
‘ — make a place of our own.’
‘We took the name off a teabag,’ said Linear, and giggled. The
others remained sombre and I asked: ‘How many are in the Society?’
‘Thirty.’
‘And when you began?’
‘The same. Nobody dropped out,’ Goosegirl said aggressively.
‘It’s just,’ Thursday said, ‘a lot live on the other side of town, can’t
always afford the fare. Some of the girls don’t make the night meetings, ’cos that’s when they work.’
(Several days later I understood what he meant.)
‘Everyone’s still interested,’ said Jeri. ‘Totally.’
Looking around at the five of them, I realised that the imaginary
land, so quaintly depicted on the scrap of paper I still held, was of vital
importance to the Society.
The next day was Saturn’s and the first of the month, the appointed
date for paying rent. I took the money down to Vini in Times Gone,
where he insisted on celebrating the occasion formally, with tea.
‘I met the Lipton Village Society. To be exact, one sixth of it.
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Lucy Sussex
Thursday October, Jeri, Linear, Strongarm and Goosegirl.’
‘Ah,’ Vini said dubiously. ‘More tea?’
‘No thanks. Where do they get those names from?’
‘Lipton Village.’
‘Silly question.’
‘Thursday is actually Brendan Mahaffy, I think . . . it’s hard to
remember.’
‘I think they’re sweet, really. So serious, about a fantasy world.’
‘It’s not a fantasy, it’s real for them. They genuinely believe the place
exists.’
There was a jangly crash as the door was flung open to admit a
short man in a high temper. He carried a parcel wrapped in the shop
paper. As he