So I began to settle down to a quiet life
here in The Village. They gave me a credit card, card of identity, a Health and
welfare card, and employment card. I set myself a daily regime, a walk around The Village twice a day, morning and afternoon. I would have lunch at the café,
and buy a copy of the daily newspaper The Tally Ho. Being a smoker I asked the
chap at the kiosk for twenty Number Six, he said “Are you trying to be funny?”
Alright I told him, twenty Number 10. He just scowled at me, and served me with
20 Village Woodbines and a box of Village matches!
Somedays I would play chess, or go for long
walks along the beach and play ‘ducks and drakes,’ or swim in the open lido.
And then there was the occasional Village activity, such as a concert of folk
music, or demonstration of mime in the Recreation Hall. I never considered
escape, well there are only so many ways of attempting escape. I mean take
Number 82. He carved himself a dug-out canoe out of a tree trunk. He paddled
out into the middle of the estuary at night, attempting to escape under the
cover of darkness. But the searchlight crew in the Tower spotted him, The
Village Guardian was despatched……there was no funeral, as you need a body! Well
I’m no good at woodwork. I cannot navigate, or make a homemade compass. I could
try for the mountains, but I’m no mountaineer. I can swim, but not so far. Nor
can I pilot a helicopter, but I can drive, perhaps away along the beach to
somewhere. But really I haven’t got escape in me. I like a quiet life you see,
and life here is really preferable to what it is elsewhere. I was a journalist
working on a two-bit rag of a newspaper and going nowhere. The wife had left me
for another woman, and that’s when life for me hit rock bottom, so I resigned,
I went home, woke up, I was here!
Next week there is the Exhibition of Arts
and Crafts. I’ve seen some of the entries, they’re not very original, mostly
paintings, drawings, and sculptures of Number 2. Me, I’ve painted a landscape
of The Village, and entitled it “View From A Villa.”
Eventually I got a job working on the local
newspaper. At least it’s work with which I’m familiar, even if I am told what
to write! But now and again I’m free to write articles like this one. There’s
no harm in it, no propaganda, no rebelliousness. Well I wouldn’t want to seem
unmutual would I now. Not like that Number 6. It was suggested that I write an
article about Number 6, citizens might find him interesting the editor said. I
tried getting an interview with Number 6, but he just slammed the door in my
face. So how am I to write such an article about a man I know absolutely
nothing about I asked the editor? “You’re a journalist aren’t you? Just make it
up as you go along!”
“So there’s this chap by the name Number
Six. He goes about shouting “I am not a number, I am free man.” He tries to
escape at any given opportunity, pokes his nose in where he can. Usually he
wears a dark blazer with off-white piping. But one time something curious
happened, he started going about The Village wearing a cream blazer with black
piping, what’s more he was seen to be wearing his Number 6 Penny Farthing
badge. Well I tell you readers, when have you ever seen Number 6 wearing his
numbered badge? Just about never I’d say. Then one day, just as I was passing
the Recreation Hall, I saw not one Number 6, but two! They were having a fight,
and the one in the dark blazer was knocked to the ground. Then The Village
Guardian appeared and herded the both of them away. I told the editor, he said
I must be seeing double, and what was I making up this rubbish for? I told the
editor that I hadn’t made it up at all. “What two Six’s in the Village” he barked “Next thing you know you’ll be
seeing Lord Lucan here!” Well he has to be some place, and if not here, then
elsewhere!
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