L ~ Mollusc Jam

Yesterday afternoon, Manley and Si?n were out. Hen was drowning
himself in green tea, rubbing beeswax lip balm on himself and
scratching out his own religion on paper, having given up on getting up
in time for any more church. Mary manages it only infrequently, after
all, and her dad's a minister, he summised, with hunched fingers, to
the naked kitchen.

Hen's stock response to Si?n's disapproval, whether looming or coming
down hellish, is, "Don't hate me. Please don't hate me." Any stock
response's got to be the beginning of some religion, so Hen wrote that
down first:

'Don't hate me' is what you must say routinely.

Limp profoundly, always, the outward admission of your rotten old
hoomanity.

All will be lifeboatmen, and rush to the rescue.

Everyone love their houses, and all their stuff.

Kick machines, not people.

Wash the brain regularly to avoid despair.

Who, he asked himself, was the employee with the long name when Si?n
and he ate out at Big W?

Love and respect Alistair Miles Keeble.

After that, he'd had enough - a poor joke at best, silly Hen. No one
to call you hun for the time being, so you take comfort in religion,
you old fool. Go up and see the harpies instead, til Manley's back -
one of them must have a free slot, and a bare room, and a made bed for
sitting on.

So Hen screwed up his paper and tossed it onto the heap softening on
top of the H0 dustbin, and he threw himself up the stairs in search of
company. He found himself a scene of sorts, in the H1 kitchen, and knew
immediately it was a scene because Mary, Besse and Lianne were standing
taught, silent and straight-faced, with cups held out steaming in front
of them at the end of hooked, locked thumbs. They surrounded one of
H1's six ladies, who was crooked and bowed, one hand limp across the
brow, the other cupping her waist. No one said hi to him as he entered,
but Besse broke her lips to tut in disappointment and broke her pose to
put an arm round the suffering lady. They started to move forward - to
go to her room, away from the ring. Mary and Lianne waited til the
doors had been opened to the corridor, then followed in procession. Hen
kept close behind them as they moved, scuttling, not keeping in step,
and asked aloud what the matter was. Mary turned her head and
whispered, "The other girls have told her they don't want to move in
with her."

"Oh dear," said Hen.

"They just took her into the kitchen and told her. It sounds really
horrible."

"God, yes," said Hen.

He could hear Besse purring her sympathies to the girl, but she purred
too softly for the words to be clear to him.

"She's been really brave," continued Mary.

"That's her all over," said Hen.

They reached the lady's room, and Besse went in with her, pulling the
door to behind them. Lianne and Mary were left alone with Hen in the
corridor.

"I can't believe they did that," Lianne hissed, taking her cup in both
hands. "Imagine just being told by the people you thought you were
going to live with that they didn't want to move in with you."

Mary rested her shoulder against the breezeblock wall.

"I just wouldn't be able to handle it."

"If it were me, I wouldn't be surprised," Hen volunteered, but a
notion had taken firm hold of Lianne. She shifted her weight to the
other foot and tilted her head.

"Don't you think they've been getting very cliquey lately?"

"Well," Mary stalled. "Perhaps a little."

Hen said, "James is always laughin about how your corridor's split
itself into two groups."

"But it isn't as if we fight with each other," Mary protested.

"Oh no," said Lianne. "We don't have rows or anything."

"No no," agreed Hen. "None of us thinks that. But, well..."

Besse came out of H1-11 and shut the door firmly behind her.

"She'll be alright. She wants to be left alone for a while."

"What a horrible thing to do," Mary said again.

"I know, I know," Besse replied in earnest, and ushered the other
three down the corridor, back toward the kitchen. "What gets me is how
well she's handling it. I mean, she has every right to be absolutely
raging mad at them. I think I would be."

Mary and Lianne hmmed and yessed their firm agreement, and all stood
solemnly at Si?n's end of H1, heads bowed once more, until Hen was
itching to move. He scratched himself above the eyebrow, and muttered,
"I really need to put more of my beeswax lip balm on." No one replied.
They loved the carpet with their eyes, and hugged their cups to
themselves. Hen was about to break away and go back to his tip of a
room unsatisfied when Helen's door opened, and they all looked up. The
harpy herself came out, and ran down the corridor on her bare feet to
join the small congregation. Her thin hands clasped each other just
below her neck.

"Isn't it awful?" she asked.

They all hmmed and yessed once more.

"I feel so sorry for her. It's just not fair - she's such a lovely
person!"

"I know," said Besse. "It's not right."

"Isn't there anything we can do?"

And they all loved the floor with their eyes, Helen included. Hen
waited a good while longer, then cleared his throat politely and said,
"I'd better get something to eat."

He left them for dead.

Today the harpies held a brief meeting, hauled together in modes of
discretion by H2's Beth. They asked themselves if they should offer the
outcast a place with them. Beth rallied against the proposal, and Helen
backed her. Out of all of them, only Mary felt she knew the lady well
enough - and of the rest, only Si?n said she didn't mind anyway. Lianne
fell in on Helen and Beth's side.

It was Si?n who now angrily related the meeting to Hen and Manley,
because after all, she said, it wasn't like not knowing anyone had
stopped Beth living with the harpies. In the secrecy of Hen's tip of a
room, the two boys agreed with her.

"But we can't exactly say anything," Manley said with a resigned
grin.