Brigita doesn’t actually slap us. She thumps us. Girls who haven’t been trained to thump should stick to slapping.
But Brigita has been trained. Maybe they teach thumping in Latvian schools, or she had to do her military service before she escaped to Ireland. I don’t know. But the left side of my face is sore and big. I can’t feel Antanas’s face but my guess is his is sore too.
I’m not a complete sap.
–What did you do that for?! I yell.
She pulls her fist back again, but I have the camera out, (see ‘I’m not a complete sap’, above) and I tuck myself in behind Antanas.
–You’re an idiot, like, she says.
She’s looking at Antanas but I’m pretty sure she’s talking to me, because a. she doesn’t know Antanas; b. she does know me, and c. she’s not the type of girl who’d call a guy an idiot if she hadn’t done the research. So, fair enough.
–Why am I an idiot? I ask.
–I wasn’t talking to you, she says. –But you are an idiot too.
–Thanks, I say.
I’m filming all this, by the way.
–You are an idiot because are thinking like an Irish man, she says.
–Antanas isn’t Irish, I tell her.
–I’m talking to you now, she says.
–Oh.
–Film the Aislings.
I obey her. The Aislings are still across the street, queuing happily for the bus.
–You say you prefer the old Aislings, she says.
–Yeah, I say back.
Have you ever tried holding a camera – even if it’s only the size of a mobile phone – while expecting, waiting for, a fist to smash into the side of your head? Well, I have – and I did. And I’m kind of proud of it. And looking back – which, by the way, is easy because it all happened earlier today – it’s one of the most thrilling minutes of my life. Because the fist belongs to Brigita.
Anyway.
–Why? she asks.
–Because they’re boring now, I say. –Look.
She doesn’t thump me yet.
–You think the older versions are – what? – sexier.
–Well, I say. –Yeah.
–I agree most emphatically, says Antanas.
I’d forgotten he’s there. I like him, but I wish he’d go looking for a new job.
–Sexier? says Brigita. –Sexier? You are thinking with your testicles, like, aren’t you?
I’m trying hard to think with my brain. The Aislings’ bus has arrived. They’re helping a woman fold her stroller – one of them is holding the baby. I’m trying hard, really hard, to think with my brain. I’m thinking, I’m thinking – I’m thinking.
–No, I say.
–No?
I think.
–No, I repeat more confidently.
–I don’t think I believe you, says Brigita.
–I don’t think it’s just sexier, I lie. –What I think is, it’s more profitable.
I’m not lying now. Actually, I’m being obvious. But it’s still hard work.
–So, says Brigita. –You think I have failed.
And it’s getting harder.
–God, no, I say.
By the way, Brigita didn’t thump either myself or Antanas back there at the start of the chapter. She did pull her hand back and it looked for a minute as if she was going to let go of a haymaker, but she just put her hair back behind her ear. I added the violence because I thought the story needed a lift.
So, anyway.
Her ears are on the big side, by the way.
Anyway.
–I think it’s brilliant, I tell her. –But –
–But, like?!
–Yeah, I say. –But. I’m speaking here as the director, and your creative partner, remember? Your work with the Aislings is done. Mission accomplished, yeah?
I’m impressing myself.
She shrugs; she’s pleased.
–I guess, she says.
–Great, I say. –But it’s happened too quick, or too early. Probably too early. The speed of it is amazing, the way you just converted them to civilization. Like a miracle. But it happens too soon. We needed a few more episodes, before revealing it. We’re giving it away too early. It’s like ending the film before people have finished their popcorn. Think of The X Factor, Brigita. It goes on forever.
I can tell: Brigita is seeing the bigger, longer picture. She sees money, ease, happy days. She’s actually starting to look like one of the pre-conversion Aislings.
The Aislings’ bus is heading off. They’re standing happily, leaving the seats to the old people – that’s anyone over the age of thirty.
–Let’s get them back, I say. –Before it’s too late.
She shrugs.
–Whatever, she says.
It’s true: she’s becoming an Aisling. And the Aislings, on the departing bus, are looking very like Brigita.
“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again: but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
– George Orwell,
Animal Farm
