‘No,’ said Angie.

‘Have you?’

Angie laughed. Bee really was incapable of hearing an answer she didn’t want.

‘No,’ she repeated. 

‘So, what’s the problem?’ 

‘I don’t know.’

‘Is it the work?’

Angie said nothing.

‘Your professors? A girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever?’

‘It doesn’t matter. I’ll fix it. I’ll go home tomorrow and I’ll fix it.’

She thought that would do it. Get them out of the room. But something had gone wrong, because Tee had reddened and Bee looked like she’d been winded.

‘You don’t need to worry,’ Angie said.

Mama T tried to smile. Mama B’s zapper pinged. Tee didn’t object when she checked it. Then Bee just got up and left.

Angie stared at the vacant doorway. ‘What did I say?’

Mama T wiped her eyes. ‘We’re just tired, honey. Everyone’s tired.’

***

These days following the crush were strange. For more than a month the fields and tracks and buildings had teemed with workers and machines. Day and night, whenever Concetta gave the order, crews descended within an hour to cut the fruit from the vines, sort it, wash it, crush it. But now a ringing silence hung over Amistad, pulling minds from their trammels to set foot down a path here or explore an avenue there. Tiredness will do that. Wear away the boundaries.

The silence was, of course, an illusion. It only seemed that way because the crush was so loud. In the dead of night, as Bette lay wide awake, she could hear/feel the deep industrial hum of the tank chillers and, above that, even through double glazing, the occasional hollow note of a great horned owl, a yip-yawing of coyotes and . . .

Alice Pieszecki. Bette turned her head to look at the window. A glowing sliver of orange along the edge of the blackout blinds told of the courtyard lighting being on.

Tina was out for the count, breathing deep and steady. Bette slipped out of bed, gathered clothes off the ottoman and snuck out the door.

‘. . . impregnated nine women, got syphilis of course, which isn’t a very dainty way to go mad, and died from swallowing a silver teaspoon. Lovely penmanship, though. Now, my grandmother was Catholic, so you—’

Peggy stopped dead when she saw Bette emerge from House 2’s side door. ‘Bette!’