The Petitioners by Sheila Perry

certain to have been damaged at least, if not completely ruined. Tanya seemed to have access to something suitable, though. I didn’t waste much time wondering again about who exactly she was, but it did cross my mind from time to time.
    ‘So this is what your passion is,’ said Tanya’s voice just behind me. How had she crept round there without making any sound? ‘You hide it well, Gavin. I wouldn’t have thought you…’
    Her voice tailed off, which was uncharacteristic of the woman. She seemed like somebody who was confident enough to finish her sentences, no matter how big a minefield they led to.
    ‘You wouldn’t have thought I was capable of getting immersed in my work?’ I suggested.
    She actually blushed. ‘I didn’t mean it quite like that. I’m sorry. It’s interesting that you’re actually working at something resembling your profession under the circumstances.’
    ‘How about you, Tanya?’ I said, straightening up from my study of one of my earlier notebooks. I wasn’t sure how much of an overlap there was between what I had done earlier, and what the team had been doing. It had been a while since I wrote in a real notebook, but pencil and paper were the only tools available when I started on my project. I still got a guilty thrill out of using paper, which we had all been discouraged from wasting before.
    ‘What do you mean, how about me?’ said Tanya.
    ‘Are you working in your chosen profession right now? Or is this job a stop-gap, or a route to something better?’
    ‘I’ve got my own company,’ she said defensively.
    ‘Fairfax Consulting. And what’s the point of it?’
    ‘The point?’
    ‘What do you consult on? Is there a sector you specialise in? Or is it whatever pays the bills?’
    ‘I can’t stand people who scoff at paying the bills,’ she said. ‘If people behaved like responsible adults, then…’
    ‘Then what? We wouldn’t be in this mess now?’
    ‘I see,’ she said. ‘You scoff at everything, don’t you, Gavin? Even those revolutionary plans your friend Declan is hatching. You’re above it all, sailing along serenely, doing as much or as little as you choose…’
    She was sailing too close to the truth for my liking. Or at least what I had always perceived to be the truth about myself.
    ‘That’s a lot to deduce from such a short acquaintance,’ I said, squinting at the soft-screen she had ordered her team to set up for me.
    ‘How are you getting on, anyway?’ she asked, more conciliatory now that we had finished with the statutory argument.
    ‘It’s a very slow process,’ I said.
    ‘Have you been down into town yourself?’
    ‘I started out going in every day – after the firemen and the flood wardens had finished, that is.’ In the absence of a government with the authority to mobilize the army, the fire service and the flood wardens amongst them had organised the retrieval, removal and disposal of bodies, which must have been about the grimmest task anybody could possibly imagine. I had spent most of my time trying not to imagine it. I blinked now, to get rid of the mental images that tended to flash past like a silent movie whenever I thought about it at all. I forced my mind away from them, and focussed instead on replying to Tanya as if I were a calm, reasonable person instead of the quivering wreck that lurked somewhere inside me. ‘But the data built up quicker than I had time to look it over, so the others told me to stay here and process it while they brought pictures and notes back with them.’
    ‘So do you always do what Declan says?’ enquired Tanya Fairfax. There was a mocking tone in her voice which I took exception to. Was there any point in arguing about that, though? I didn’t think so.
    I shrugged. ‘Only if he’s making sense at the time. He doesn’t always – you may have noticed.’
    She smiled. ‘And what will you do once the work is finished here? Will you move on to another city and do the same?’
    I hadn’t