I had finished my snack and I pushed the plate away from me. I drained my cup of coffee, which had cooled. I stood up, kicking back my chair. I was irritated by her. My situation as a member of citizen serfdom is irrelevant to me. I never think about it, not as a generality, not for any specific reason. She must have known: I am usually class-recognized wherever I go. Most people are. But now it seemed to me as if she was winding me up. Why should she do that? A long journey with this woman cop lay ahead. Within the first couple of hours of starting out everything felt as if it had changed. I was stuck with her.

We were by a window: outside, the snow was still falling, cold and hard, fine like drifting dust, but billowing in the wind, intense and accumulating. A small group of people crossing the yard from where they had parked their car had already picked up swathes of snow across their clothes and hoods.

Frejah stood up too.

I said to her bluntly: ‘You know I’m a serf, don’t you? A citizen serf. I thought you realized that.’

She reacted. ‘I didn’t know that, Todd. I’m sorry. Is that true?’

‘Of course it is. Why should I make it up?’

‘I’m embarrassed – I assumed you were a professional, a vassal.’

‘That’s just your assumption,’ I said. ‘Don’t feel sorry for me. I’m a writer. All writers are serfs.’

The Enigma of Change

7

The Enigma of Change

We returned to the car, Frejah leading the way. It was chillingly cold in the basement because of the open entrance, but it was sheltered from the worst of the icy wind. Looking up along the ramp into the daylight I could see drifts and hummocks of snow.

Frejah swung herself into the driving seat and started the engine while I was still settling myself. The doors thumped down. She turned on the heater.

We made it back to the road through standing snow so deep I would have thought it would make driving impossible – the powerful engine, temporarily held back by an inertial transmission system, sounded as if it was fretting at its containment. We eased through. The wheels rarely spun. The road was narrowed by the piles of snow on each side, but the surface was relatively clear and soon after leaving the retail park we came to a long downward stretch of the road, in the lee of the wind.