The Paper Eater by Liz Jensen Read Free Book Online Page B

goes the doctor, examining my skin with a magnifying glass, indicates high levels of ink in the bloodstream.
    – That’s not what I came to see you for, I say. I want drugs.
    But he’s not listening, he’s on his hobby-horse again. Dr Pappadakis is on sabbatical from the Papandreou Hospital in Crete, and he’s done a thesis on cancer risk.
    – Printer’s ink, he goes, it’s highly carcinogenic.
    Dangerous particles have leached into my skin, where they could decide to wreak havoc at any moment, warping my cells, turning them maverick.
    – I must do blood tests, he says all Mediterranean and mournful, preparing the needle.
    – Must you? I don’t like the sound of this. – If there’s something bad, I tell him, I’d rather not know. (This approach has worked for me in the past.) – Look, I came here for some Prozac. Or could you just give me Valium? Or a few Libbies?
    – You have visitors arriving, is that the problem? You are Atlantican, no?
    – No. Yes. I’m Atlantican. But no visitors.
    – No parents-brothers-sisters?
    – Not any more, I go.
    – No wife?
    – We’re divorced.
    – Children?
    Mind your own business!
    – Daughter. Tiffany. Not visiting. Estranged.
    – Friends?
    That’s when Hannah flits back. I thought I’d banned her for good.
    – Drugs, I beg again. Look, it’s my cell-mate John. He’s going to be finally adjusted. It’s kind of stressful.
    Pappadakis looks up sharply.
    – Your cell-mate ? he goes, and the question hangs in the air for a moment, till I realise it’s a language thing.
    – Cabin-companion, I correct myself. My cabin-companion, John. He’s on Death Row.
    I roll up my sleeve and he finds my vein. We watch as the syringe fills with a blackish maroon. When he’s finished I hold the cotton wool over the puncture. Pappadakis sighs, looks at me oddly again.
    – You have thought, lately, about death?
    – Quite a bit, I confess. What with John.
    – John? Pappadakis looks away, then. Shuffles about with some papers, glances at the clock.
    – My cell-mate. Sorry, cabin-companion.
    – And you are sure – about your, er –
    – Cabin-companion, I say. I have an odd feeling we’re going round in circles. – No. Not sure. Just, it’s likely. He’s right up there on the list.
    – He is dissident? Geologist? Soil physicist? Structural engineer?
    – No, a serial killer, apparently.
    – I see, he says, sort of edgy.
    There’s a bit of a silence.
    – Have you seen how you look? he goes finally, fiddling with his worry beads. You were off-white when I first met you. Now you are really quite grey. Soon you will be the colour of the burnt wood for sketch-drawing and for barbecue, what you call it, of the charcoal , and the whites of one’s eyes, what we call the conjunctiva, will turn yellow, you follow? You too are – I mean your own er, prospects, they are … somewhat similar, no?
    It takes me a minute to see what he’s getting at.
    – Oh, sure, technically , yeah. But there’s a quota, remember? Libertycare policy states two a year, maximum, as a deterrent.
    (I’ve done my sums. There are a thousand Atlanticans aboard, and you can count on the dissident scientists and those accused of violent crimes, i.e. John, being top of the list.)
    – I could die of old age first, I tell him. Some Libbies, OK? Just to see me through?
    He sighs.
    – A small amount, he says, handing me a plastic cylinder with a child-proof top. Bear in mind that since yesterday’s announcement I have increased the amount of placebos that I issue. Your chances of this being genuine are therefore only one in five. Goodbye, Voyager.
    And he ushers me out to the corridor, where the chipmunk-faced Garcia awaits me, gun poised.
    – How d’you know you’re swallowing the real thing, then, John’s asking.
    I’ve explained the placebo theory.
    – You don’t, that’s the beauty of it. If you believe it’s working, then it’ll work, see?
    – Like Libertycare, says John.
    I look up.