The Heartland Tour

The fax came at eleven.

He did not know what it was. He heard it from the towel hut, through the window between the towel hut and the pass hut, and then through the open door of the pass hut, and across the path, and through the open door of the office, by the marina: a shriek. A high, thin, electronic shriek, like a kettle in pain, and then a sort of gargling, and then a grinding, regular, mechanical sound, like a very small train going over a very long bridge, that went on, and on.

Bonnie Tackett, in the pass hut, in her headset, took the headset off and stared at the office door.

“Well, I’ll be,” she said.

“What is it?”

“That,” said Bonnie Tackett, “is the fax.” She stood up. “Nobody’s sent a fax to this resort since 2019. A man from the State tourism office sent us a fax in 2019 to tell us about the new brochures, and I told him to stop, and he did.” She looked at the office door. “I didn’t know it still worked.”

She went across the path to the office. Frederick went on folding towels. In thirds, long way, then in half.

After a while Bonnie Tackett came back out of the office, slowly, holding something at arm’s length in front of her, by one corner, the way Castellanos had held the blue T-shirt; and it was a long strip of shiny white paper, curling, rolling itself up from the bottom as she walked, like a thing alive, and trying to get away from her.

She came to the window of the towel hut and held it up.

“It’s for you,” said Bonnie Tackett.

---

He read it at half past twelve, at lunch, sitting on the upturned crate behind the snack hut in the shade, with a hot dog at cost in one hand and the fax in the other, because it would not lie flat and he had to hold it open against his knee with his wrist.

It was three pages, on the shiny paper, which was warm still and smelled of something burnt, and the letters on it were grey and faint and slightly smeared, as if they had been photographed through water; but he could read them. At the top of the first page, faint, the crest, the eagle and the crown, and the words OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER - CHARTER HOUSE; and under it, in capitals, underlined:

PROPOSED SUMMER PROGRAMME (REVISED): THE HEARTLAND TOUR (ABRIDGED).

He put the hot dog down on the crate.

Prepared at the request of the Prime Minister’s office in the light of the King’s present circumstances, and in the hope that a shorter and more local programme might be found acceptable. Nine engagements. All within fifty miles of the King’s present location. None requiring travel by air. None exceeding ninety minutes. Each is optional. And under that, in a different typeface, smaller, as though it had been added last: Ms R. Fenner.

He turned it over to the list.

1. Tuesday 7 August. Grand Lake. A tour of the dam and powerhouse with the river authority, on the anniversary of the closing of the gates in 1940. (Ordinary families at an ordinary lake, revised.)

2. Wednesday 8 August. Grove. A visit to a poultry processing plant in Delaware County, the State’s third-largest employer in its sector.

3. Thursday 9 August. Vinita. A roundtable with users of the Craig and Mayes Counties rural transit service, with the Minister of State for Transport, followed by a short ride on the service.

He stopped.

He read number three again. A short ride on the service. He thought about Earl, at the wheel of the van, with the Minister of State for Transport in the second row where Mrs Ledbetter sat, and a photographer at the back where the wheelchair went, and six men in dark suits in the seats, and the man on the radio singing about the beautiful shore; and Earl looking in the mirror, at all of them, and then at him, in the middle of them, and understanding, at last, at the stop sign by the church, after everything, who Hanover plus three had been.

He felt sick.

He read on.

4. Friday 10 August. Ketchum. Cove Point Resort. Presentation of the junior swimming certificates (rescheduled).

5. Saturday 11 August. Tahlequah. A call upon the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.

6. Monday 13 August. Muskogee. A visit to the Five Nations heritage centre.

7. Tuesday 14 August. Big Cabin. County road 4510. A visit, with the Prime Minister, to the site of the Big Cabin Creek bridge, to mark the enactment of the Highways (Rural Bridges) Act 2029. (The Prime Minister has expressed a particular interest.)

8. Wednesday 15 August. Vinita. A visit to the Craig County Free Fair (if it can be rescheduled; failing which, a visit to the fairgrounds).

9. Friday 3 August (tomorrow, if this reaches the King in time). Vinita. Craig County Free Fair, premium sale. Presentation of the ribbon for the grand champion steer, at the invitation of the chairman of the fair board, Mr C. Baggett.

He read number nine three times.

At the invitation of the chairman of the fair board.

---

“What’s that?”

Kaylee was standing at the corner of the snack hut. She had come down off the chair for her break and gone to GALS and come back round the hut instead of going straight to the chair, which she never did; and she was looking at the long curling strip of shiny paper on his knee, and at his face.

“It’s from the Prime Minister’s office,” he said.

Kaylee came and stood behind him and read it over his shoulder. He let her. He did not know why. He thought that it was because she had told the woman from Tulsa that he was working, and because she had made him do the floor twice, and because he wanted somebody who was not from New Westminster to see it.

She read all three pages. She read them slowly, moving her lips very slightly at the long words, the way Theo did.

“Ordinary families at an ordinary lake, revised,” said Kaylee.

“Yes.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means the first one had ordinary families at an ordinary lake in it as well. On page six. And I said no. So she’s revised it.” He looked at it. “To a dam.”

Kaylee looked at number four.

“My certificates,” she said, in a voice of quiet menace.

“I know.”

“Rescheduled.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“I told Bonnie. Bonnie told her. Last week.” Kaylee looked at the fax as though she would like to put it in the deep end and hold it under. “And she’s put it back in.”

Bonnie Tackett had come round the other corner of the hut, from the griddle, wiping her hands on her apron, and was reading it too, over his other shoulder. He could feel her reading it. She read faster than Kaylee and she made a small noise at every number, a different one each time, like somebody being shown the bill for a very expensive meal.

“Number three,” said Bonnie Tackett.

“I know.”

“That’s Earl.”

“I know.”

“Earl doesn’t know,” said Bonnie Tackett. “Earl’s the only man in this county who doesn’t know. You know that? The whole county’s been keeping it from Earl like he’s a child at Christmas. Darlene says it’s the most fun she’s had since nineteen ninety-eight.” She looked at the fax. “And this woman wants to put six men in suits on his van.”

“Seven,” said Kaylee. “With the Minister.”

“And a photographer,” said Frederick.

They were all three quiet for a moment, behind the snack hut, in the shade, reading.

“Number nine,” said Bonnie Tackett, at last, in a different voice.

“Yes.”

“At the invitation of Mr C. Baggett.” Bonnie Tackett looked at him. “Did Cliff invite you?”

“He asked. Once. On Saturday. At the lemonade.” Frederick looked at the faint grey letters. “I said no. He said it was the right answer. He said he’d give it himself, like he has for twenty-three years.” He looked up. “He must have told somebody he’d asked. And somebody told her.”

“Cliff told everybody he’d asked,” said Bonnie Tackett. “Cliff told everybody at the Methodist supper on Sunday that he’d asked, and that you’d said no, and why, and that it was the right answer, damn it, and he’d never been prouder of being turned down in his life.” She looked at the fax. “And now it’s in here like it’s still a yes.”

---

He rang from the office, at ten past one, from Bonnie Tackett’s desk, with the air conditioner roaring and dripping into the coffee tin and the eleven fish looking down at him from the walls, and Bonnie Tackett standing in the door with her arms folded and Kaylee behind her on the step, both of them pretending not to listen and neither of them leaving.

He had the number on the fax. It was at the bottom of the third page, faint, under Ms R. Fenner. He dialled it on Bonnie Tackett’s desk telephone, which had buttons, big ones, that clicked.

It rang four times.

“Prime Minister’s office, programmes,” said a young woman’s voice, quick and bright and tired, the voice of somebody who had been answering the telephone since seven. “Fenner speaking.”

“Ms Fenner,” said Frederick. “It’s the King.”

There was a silence on the line from New Westminster so complete that he could hear, in it, very faintly, somebody else’s telephone ringing in the same room, a long way away.

“Sir,” said Ms Fenner.

“I’ve had your fax.”

“Sir. Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. I wasn’t sure it would…” She stopped. “The number was the only one I had. For the resort. From last week. I wasn’t sure it would reach you. I’m so sorry, sir, I know I’m not supposed to have…” She stopped again. “Sir. Is it acceptable? Any of it? Even one? I’ve cut it to nine. I’ve kept it local. I’ve kept it short. Nothing over ninety minutes. I’ve…”

“Ms Fenner,” said Frederick.

“Sir.”

He looked at the fax on Bonnie Tackett’s desk, curling, warm, three pages of grey letters on shiny paper; and at the eleven fish; and at Bonnie Tackett in the door with her arms folded and Kaylee behind her on the step; and he thought about the Blue Drawing Room on the night of the reception, and Ms Fenner standing by the long window in a grey suit with her folder, and Mr Abernathy in front of her in his corduroy, saying I’d prefer not; and about how she had looked, after, by the window, when nobody was watching, at the folder in her hands, as though it had told her something she had not known.

“I’d prefer not,” he said.

The silence again.

“All of it, sir?”

“All of it.”

“Even the…”

“Even the bridge.”

He heard her breathe out. A long breath, down the line, all the way from Charter House, the breath of a young woman who had spent six weeks on fourteen pages, and then four days on three, and had sent them on a fax machine that nobody had used since 2019 to a resort on a lake because it was the only number she had.

“Sir,” said Ms Fenner. “May I ask you something? I know I shouldn’t.”

“Yes.”

“What are you doing instead?”

---

He did not answer at once.

He did not know how much she knew. He thought about it, with the receiver at his ear. He thought that she knew where he was, because the Prime Minister knew, because the Household had told him, because the Prime Minister had to know where the King was, always; and that she knew about the pool, because Bonnie Tackett had told her, on the Wednesday, he was in the queue, he paid. He did not think that she knew the rest. He did not think anybody had told her. He did not think, now he thought about it, that anybody in Charter House had thought to ask what he was doing, as opposed to where he was, and not doing; and that she was the first person in New Westminster who had.

“I’m working,” he said.

“Working, sir?”

“At the pool. The one you rang. I’ve got a job. Towels, and the snack hut, and the skimmer, and the bathrooms. Ten to six. Eight pounds an hour.” He paused. “I’m on my lunch. That’s why I could ring.”

There was no sound on the line at all.

He waited. He listened to the other telephone, ringing, far away, in the room at Charter House, and somebody answering it, and a door closing; and the air conditioner in Bonnie Tackett’s office, roaring, and dripping into the coffee tin, plink, and plink.

“Sir,” said Ms Fenner at last, and her voice had changed, and he could not tell into what. “May I tell you something? It’s not… it’s not in the Programme.”

“Yes.”

“I worked at a pool,” said Ms Fenner. “When I was sixteen. Seventeen. Two summers. In Ohio. The municipal pool in Chillicothe. I did the towels.” A pause. “And the snack bar. And the…” She stopped.

“The bathrooms,” said Frederick.

“The bathrooms,” said Ms Fenner, and he heard something happen in her voice that he did not have a name for, and then heard her put her hand over the receiver, and take it away again. “Sir. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry about the certificates. I didn’t know. I didn’t know you were working there. I thought you were just… I thought…”

“It’s all right.”

“It isn’t. The lifeguard does the certificates. The lifeguard always does the certificates. We had a lifeguard called Donna who did the certificates every summer and if anybody had tried to…” She stopped. “Sir. Is she there? The lifeguard?”

Frederick looked at the door. Kaylee was on the step behind Bonnie Tackett with her sunglasses pushed up into her hair and the whistle round her neck, looking at the marina, with tremendous concentration, as though she were not listening at all.

“Yes.”

“Would you tell her,” said Ms Fenner, “that I’m sorry? From the Prime Minister’s office. From me.” A pause. “And that the certificates are hers.”

---

He told her.

He held the receiver against his chest and said Kaylee, Ms Fenner from the Prime Minister’s office says she’s sorry, and the certificates are yours, across the office, to the door; and Kaylee looked round from the marina, slowly, and looked at him at Bonnie Tackett’s desk with the receiver against his chest, and then at the telephone, as though it were a snake that had unexpectedly apologised.

“Tell her thank you,” said Kaylee, at last.

He told her.

“Sir,” said Ms Fenner. Her voice had gone quick and bright again, but differently; it had gone bright the way a person’s voice goes when they have decided something. “Sir, the Programme. The Prime Minister… he will want there to be something. He’s… he’s been asked. In the House. Twice. The Opposition keeps asking where you are and what you’re doing and why there’s nothing, and the Prime Minister keeps saying the King is on his holidays, and they keep laughing at him, and the papers…” She stopped. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you that.”

“It’s all right.”

“Is there anything, sir? Anything at all I can put in? Anything that isn’t you?”

He looked at the fax on the desk. At number seven.

Big Cabin. County road 4510. The site of the Big Cabin Creek bridge.

He thought about Earl, at the wheel of the van, saying the bridge that’s out on the way to Big Cabin as though it were the weather. He thought about the schedule in the back of the Act, and page thirty-four, and the orange hair lying across it beside the line. He thought about what Earl had said on the highway with the hot wind coming in. Because it’s cheaper to say it.

“The bridge,” he said.

“Sir?”

“Put the bridge in. Number seven. Without me.” He picked up the fax and held it open on the desk with his wrist. “Somebody should go and look at it. It’s in the schedule. It’s been closed since I don’t know when. The man who drives the van says it’s been out for years and they say every election they’ll mend it and they don’t.” He looked at the line. “Send somebody to stand on it and say it’s going to be mended. And then mend it.”

“Who, sir?” said Ms Fenner. “If not you. The Minister?”

“No.” He thought. “The county commissioner.”

There was a pause on the line.

“The county commissioner, sir?”

“For Craig County. The one who doesn’t grade the roads. Earl says he’ll be finished at the next election.” Frederick looked at the eleven fish. “Put him in the Programme. Put him on the bridge. With the Prime Minister if the Prime Minister wants to go. With a photographer. In August. In the heat.” He paused. “Let him stand on it and say it’ll be mended, in front of everybody. Then he’ll have to.”

There was a silence on the line from Charter House for a long time.

Then he heard Ms Fenner laugh. It was a small laugh, and it was startled out of her, and she stopped it at once, and it came back.

“Sir,” she said, “that’s… sir, that’s politics.”

“Is it?”

“It’s very good politics,” said Ms Fenner. He heard a pen. He heard her writing, fast, on paper, down the line. “The county commissioner for Craig County on the Big Cabin Creek bridge. With the Prime Minister. In August. In the heat.” The pen stopped. “He’ll hate it.”

“Good.”

“He’ll have to do it.” The pen again. “Sir, may I put it in the Programme as…” She hesitated. “As the King’s suggestion?”

“No,” said Frederick. “Put it in as yours.”

---

He went back to the snack hut at twenty to two, ten minutes late from his lunch, and Kaylee wrote it in her notebook, ten minutes, and took it out of his Friday, and did not say anything else about it, then or for the rest of the afternoon; except that at four o’clock, when she came down to test the water, she knelt on the hot concrete at the deep end with the white box and the tubes and the drops, and looked up at him where he was skimming, and held up the pH tube for him to see, red against the sun, the colour of Darlene’s wild plum jelly.

“Seven point four,” she said.

“Good.”

“You can do the next one.” She held out the dropper. “With me next to you.” A pause. “Rule two.”

He knelt beside her on the hot concrete. She gave him the tube, and the dropper, and he filled the tube to the line with pool water and put in the five drops, slowly, with her hand under his wrist, not holding it, just there; and they watched the water in the tube go red.

“Seven point four,” he said.

“Seven point four,” said Kaylee, and took the tube back.

---

Theo’s photograph went in at half past five.

Castellanos took him. It was the only way. Earl did not run on Thursdays and Mrs Sixkiller had a meeting at the church and there was nobody else; and Castellanos, at the pool gate at a quarter past five, with his blue T-shirt bloused over his belt, had looked at Theo, standing in the car park with a flat brown paper parcel held against his chest in both arms, and at his watch, and at Frederick, who still had three-quarters of an hour of his shift to go, and at Kimura, on her lounger with her novel, who did not look up; and had said Sergeant Kimura has the pool, and opened the car door for Theo, and driven him to Vinita, fourteen miles, in the air conditioning, with the parcel on his knees, and brought him back.

Frederick did not see the photograph. Nobody did. Theo had mounted it himself, at the kitchen table, at six that morning, on a piece of stiff grey card from the drawing pad that Marcus had brought in case he wanted to draw, which he had not; and had wrapped it in brown paper from Mrs Sixkiller’s drawer and tied it with string; and had not let any of them see it, through all of that, not even Felix, who had been at the table at six with flour on his hands, on his way to the blue door, and had tried.

“Friday,” Theo had said. “With everybody else.”

At seven, when Castellanos’s car came back up the gravel road, Theo got out of it with nothing in his arms, and stood at the bottom of the porch steps, and took out of his pocket the second pink ticket, the one the woman at the desk had given him on Tuesday with his card, which he had not shown to anybody, and held it up.

413.

“Next to yours,” he said. “In the book. And on the wall. The woman put it up next to your birdhouse. Four-twelve and four-thirteen.”

Frederick took the ticket from him and looked at it.

“You’re next to me,” he said.

“I’m always next to you,” said Theo. “It’s the alphabet.” He took the ticket back. “Hanover. Hartigan.” He put it in his pocket. “It’s not my fault.”

---

At nine, on the porch, in the dark, with the whip-poor-will in the oak, Felix came back from the blue door.

He had gone back at five, for the last practice before the real one, the one he would make at five o’clock tomorrow morning in Mrs Sixkiller’s kitchen when the kitchen was as cold as it would ever be in August and carry to the hall in Vinita by eight. He came up the gravel road in the dark on foot, two miles, with a dish in his hands with a cloth over it, and came up the porch steps, and did not say anything, and put the dish down on the boards in the middle of them, and took the cloth off.

It was peach. It was golden. The slits in the top were in the shape of a leaf. The edge was pinched into ridges like the edge of a coin.

There was a piece missing from it. A small one. A wedge, cut out cleanly, from one side.

“She tasted it,” said Felix.

They looked at him.

“She cut that piece out with a knife, and put it on a saucer, and sat down at her kitchen table, and ate it. All of it. With a fork. Slowly. She didn’t say anything. And then she put the fork down.” Felix looked at the pie. “And she didn’t give the rest to the chickens.”

Nobody said anything.

“She said, that’ll do,” said Felix. “And then she said, five o’clock. And then she shut the door.” He sat down on the top step, suddenly, as though his legs had gone. “That’ll do.”

In the dark, on the porch, the four of them ate the rest of the pie with their fingers, and it was not tough at all.