The Prisoner (1979) Read Free

You have only to ask.’
    The tall, candy-striped poles with their square metal hoods and glittering camera eyes waited at each corner, speakers crackling with cool electric life.
    ‘We are simply not going to accommodate ourselves to you. Get that thought out of your head. You’re not that important. You have a certain value to us, yes. But nothing so great as you think. You are no more than a cog in our machine, and you must be made to work smoothly. You will be made to work smoothly. There is room only for harmony. And we will have harmony.’
    Number 105’s house was shuttered and dark. The roses bright with dew.
    ‘Think about that: harmony and beauty. A village living in peace and contentment, a model for the world to follow. Oh, if you’d only let yourself go, you’d find us the best of fellows. There’s so much to do, you could really be quite comfortable here. It’s only your attitude that can’t be tolerated. We love the real you.’
    Ting-a-ling-ling.
    Chop. Number 87’s cleaver cut through the beef. Chop. Chop. Chop. Steady, even slices, the silver wedge of the blade striking down against the wooden cutting board. Chop. Chop. Chop.
    ‘Good morning, Number Eighty-seven.’
    A mean, resentful look from tiny eyes set deep over quivering, sullen jowls. ‘Number Six.’
    ‘And how are you this morning?’
    ‘Well enough, thank you. Your order?’ He produced pad and pen.
    ‘Chopped liver.’
    ‘Off today.’
    ‘In that case…Kippers, definitely kippers.’
    ‘Off today.’
    ‘What would you recommend?’
    ‘Couldn’t say.’
    ‘One of those steaks…No. Not the fat one. That one there.’
    ‘Some people…know-it-alls…’ he muttered. ‘Disparaging a man’s…’
    ‘What was that, Eighty-seven?’
    His hands moved deftly, folding the meat tightly into paper. ‘Here. That’ll be point eight five credit units.’
    ‘Charge—’
    ‘All right.’ He frowned down at the register. ‘Getting quite a balance, you are.’
    ‘Bill me at the end of the month, as always, and have this deliver—’
    ‘No deliveries today.’
    ‘No?
    ‘No. Number Twenty-four quit. Taken up a new career. Film-making it is. Just like these lads today: no sense of values. This profession was good enough for me father and it is good enough for me. Don’t see why they have to go off and get themselves involved in that foolishness.’ He picked up the cleaver and made an abrupt downward motion. Chop.
    ‘Be seeing you.’
    Chop. Chop. Chop.
    Ting-a-ling-ling.
    ‘— in the Cultural Centre at two o’clock…And the Women’s League for Better Government will hold a benefit showing of Gone With the Wind in the Little Theatre this evening at half past seven. I repeat: There will be a display of the sculpture of our own Number Three Thirty-six this afternoon at two in the Cultural Centre. And this evening at half past seven the Women’s League for Better Government will hold a benefit showing of Gone With the Wind It’s for a good cause; please come and help promote mutuality in our Village. It is forty-two degrees centigrade and the wind is two point three miles an hour from the north-northeast. This is your Hostess, Number Two Fifteen, turning you over to the music of Mantovani with his arrangement of Yesterday.’
    The day was grey, heavily overcast, the underbellies of the clouds moving in dark, ragged streamers. The wind chill, a faint foretaste of rain in the air. Gravel popped underfoot and the white gingerbread houses stood out sharp and vivid, grey-gabled roofs like battlements raised against the sky.
    Ting-a-ling-ling.
    The man sitting behind the counter, bent over a rolling machine, was large and beefy, a thin reddish beard covering his cheeks. The shop was pungent with the aroma of tobacco.
    ‘Yes. May I help you?’
    ‘Where is One Fifty-seven?’
    ‘He is no longer here.’ The man did not look up from his work.
    ‘What do you mean, “no longer here”?’
    ‘He left.’
    ‘For where?’
    ‘I