Now when Nona waited for Camilla’s eyes to clear, and she lifted up Camilla’s hand to press her mouth to it, all Camilla said was, “Thanks.” And she almost didn’t flinch.
6
PYRRHA WAS WORKING LATE THAT EVENING. They were demolishing a big building that everyone was worried was about to come down and squash all of the surrounding streets flat and go right through the road to the tunnels. The work kept on being stop-start stop-start because people couldn’t decide who was responsible for paying the workers: the militia or the old civic government. Down at the local dairy one of the old men had grumbled that at least with the Houses around you knew who was paying who and the other old man had said, Is that all you care about, you shameful old bastard, and then they realised Nona was there and to cover up their mutual embarrassment they had asked Nona what she thought. She said she didn’t mind what happened so long as Pyrrha got paid, because she wanted a birthday present. Then they chucked her beneath the chin and laughed a lot and Nona didn’t know why, because she had been perfectly sincere. They each gave her a coffee coupon, and she was so excited that she nearly dropped the coupons twice on the way home.
Now that the last of the heat had died, Camilla was uncapping fresh water to put into the tank so that they could have a bath. Nona had her scrub-down in front of the sink, hopping cold despite the heat, eager to get into the warm water; the door was cracked a little so that she could hear Camilla moving around, sloshing the water around with a stick to make sure there was nothing blocking up the pipe. She said: “Will you read to me?” They were still getting through old news sheets where people wrote in questions about problems they were having and the editor suggested things they could do. They were written half in a language Cam could read and half in one she couldn’t. Nona loved these sheets. Nobody in real life would ever have the problems those people in the paper had, and the suggestions were even worse.
“Piece of melon gets you five minutes” was the reply.
“I can eat two,” Nona decided. “That’s ten.” And: “When’s Pyrrha coming back?”
“Bedtime, probably. We won’t wait up.” Then she shocked Nona deeply by saying, “Nona, would you ever want to leave here?”
“What?”
“Live on a farm with the Warden and me. With Pyrrha. Out of the city. Away.”
“No,” said Nona, startled and not at all pleased. “I love it here.”
“Would you love a new home too, if we were all there?”
“Maybe,” said Nona, now startled and suspicious.
“Is there anything you’re not telling me?”
It was the first time ever that Camilla had asked that question. It was such an abundantly awful question to ask. The silence drew out between them in a way that made the tips of Nona’s ears feel hot. It felt as though it lasted a very long time.
Then— “Yes,” said Nona, faintly.
There was another long pause. “Do you promise to tell me or Palamedes if you get scared about something, or don’t know what to do?”
That was more like Camilla. “Sure,” Nona said.
“Thanks. We appreciate it.” The door opened a fraction, and a plastic saucer with two slices of melon appeared. Nona began rinsing her soapy arms. A voice cleared outside the door, and the sheet rustled. “Dear Aunty. When my boyfriend and I get into an argument, he goes to the bathroom and then makes me apologise to…”
Nona sat in the bath and ate one and a half slices of melon, which was one and a half slices too many, and got about seven minutes of the letters from people with problems. She laughed a lot. She couldn’t read Camilla anything in return, but Camilla liked having baths by herself, so Nona amused herself in the front room taking strips of paper and folding them into little crinkles and streamers the way Honesty and Kevin had shown her. Kevin was very good at folding paper into shapes: he had small and nimble fingers. Despite having waited and waited, it was still hot when they both settled down for bed, but there was a breeze and the windows were open, and they were both comfortable with wet hair and lying with no covers on.
Nona tried to doze as the water dried on her body, listened to a muffled siren falling and rising somewhere beyond the blackout curtains, but she and Camilla were both fidgeting too much—Camilla with some discipline, stretching her legs out, pointing her toes at the ceiling, Nona trying to get comfortable on her back. She waited for Cam to tell her off for being restless, but eventually Camilla asked, “Should I read another letter?”