Page 57 of The Compound

Nineteen

The bedsheets were ripped off me, wrenching me from sleep. I screamed, but it was only Andrew.

“Time to wake up!” he cried. He was leaning over me, his eyes bright, freshly showered and smiling.

He handed me a coffee, made in the mug I had won some months ago.

Looking at it, I saw that it turned pink in hot water.

I hadn’t realized, as I hadn’t actually used it.

I had this idea that it was too nice to use.

In my hand, the purple disintegrated into pink, dreamlike and fantastical.

“It’s still early,” I said, glancing out of habit at the slant of pale gray filtering through the skylight. I made a grab for the sheets, but Andrew threw them to the floor. He sat next to me, and I sat up so that my back rested against the headboard.

“There’s so much to do,” he said. “Another day, another dollar.”

“I don’t want to do anything,” I said. “I want to sleep.”

“Sleep!” he laughed. “No, no, no.” He was still smiling broadly. I shifted uncomfortably.

“Aren’t you tired? You were so sick, before…”

“Oh, they fixed me right up. I feel fantastic, now. Fan tas tic.”

When he had first arrived back, he had seemed strange, but I figured he was maybe loopy on medication.

Now, in the light of morning, he seemed manic, frantic.

I reached for the throw that had pooled at my feet.

I pulled it up to my chin and cradled the mug of coffee in my hands.

From the smell alone, I knew that it was a luxury brand.

It was Andrew’s coffee. When he did a task, he nearly always received a luxury item.

“So, I’ve been thinking,” Andrew said, shifting closer to me. “All night I’ve been thinking. And you know what I’ve been thinking about? Legacy. I want to make sure that people remember us. We need to put our mark on this place.”

“It’s a television show,” I said. “They’ll remember us.”

He looked at me with mild distaste. “I mean the future residents. The people after us. I want the people who live here next to think: wow. Those guys really lived.”

I decided to humor him. “Okay. How are we going to do that?”

“I think we should build a monument. Something impressive. Something that screams legacy. I think it will impress a lot of people. And I think it will impress them, as well.”

“Who’s them?”

He gestured around us. “ Them. The producers. The people who make all of this possible.”

“Andrew,” I said, “are you okay?”

“A monument would make a great impact,” he said. “People would really get a sense of the life that we have here. So I think I’m going to make the monument, and you should work on getting the house in shape. And you could probably do the cooking and things, too, right?”

“I’m not really much of a cook.”

He looked at me in astonishment. “That’s not true. That’s not true at all. You and Carlos used to make such wonderful meals!”

“That was Candice and Carlos,” I said. “I did the cleaning. I cleaned the kitchen.”

“Really?” he said. “Well—I have faith in you.”

“I don’t know…”

“Look at this place. Look at all that possibility. Don’t you want to be part of something bigger than yourself? Lily,” he said, using his serious, thoughtful voice. “Let me ask you something. What do you want your life to look like?”

The question alarmed me. It was the one I didn’t want to answer, and the one that pressed most frequently on my mind.

I knew what I didn’t want: I didn’t want to go back to work, and do little jobs that didn’t mean anything.

I didn’t want to force myself out of bed every morning, and feel like my soul was being pulled from my body.

I didn’t want to live with my mother, but I didn’t want to try to find somewhere else to stay.

I wanted to be free from the daily confrontation with the slow decay of humanity and everything we had built.

I wanted to be left alone. I wanted quiet.

I wanted to stop pretending that I cared about things.

“I suppose,” I said, “I’d like to take life at a slow pace. For a little while.”

He nodded. “I get that,” he said. “I understand that, Lily. I really do. I think that’s really avant-garde. Now let me ask you another question, and I want you to think about this carefully.” He paused, seeming to want confirmation, and I nodded. “Why do you reckon the two of us made it this far?”

I thought for a few moments. It seemed obvious enough, depressing though it was.

I was there because I thought that this was what I was supposed to want: the house and the rewards and all the nice things.

Andrew was there because he had a need to exert control coupled with a crippling fear of loneliness.

“Because we both wanted it,” I said.

“Because we both wanted it,” he echoed, nodding. “You’re right, Lily. Well done. But I think there’s more to it, don’t you? People must have wanted the two of us to make it this far.”

“I don’t think they want me to win,” I said. Hadn’t they tried to hunt me out again and again? I was still there because Tom didn’t think that I had the same viciousness in me that he had in him. I hadn’t been sure either, until I had crossed into the desert, bait in hand.

“I didn’t say win,” he said. “I mean making it to the last two. That’s a far worthier reward than being the last person remaining, don’t you think? Because this way, we can work together, help each other out, right?”

“Right,” I said. I felt myself falling into old habits. There was always a part of me that wanted to impress Andrew; to play along by his rules. He had so many ideas, and I didn’t mind being told what todo.

“You know I’ve always had a soft spot for you, don’t you?

You’re really special, Lily. I’ve always thought so.

” He leaned forward so that he was resting on his elbow, his face close to mine.

He was looking at me with a strange intensity.

I could feel his breath on my face. “Isn’t it likely,” he said, “that they want us to be together? Why else would it be the two of us left?”

“I don’t want you,” I said. I let the words leave me without thought. “I want Sam.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that too much. I think you’re great, Lily, but I don’t particularly want you either.

Not that I don’t think that you’re beautiful.

Of course, you’re a great girl and all that, only…

” He trailed off, and we both looked away from each other.

“But I think we should give the people what they want, right? If they want us together, then who are we to disagree, right? We’re only here on their good graces. ”

“I don’t think I want to do that.” Unnerved, I tried to inch a little farther back from him.

He stared at me until I met his eye again.

I could see the specks of green around his pupil.

Whatever beauty Andrew had didn’t move me: not at all.

He lifted a hand and tucked a piece of hair behind my ear.

He kept his hand there, behind my ear, holding my head in place.

I tried not to flinch. I looked at him, and he looked back at me, his hand on my hair.

We stayed locked in a lifeless embrace for some time, staring at each other as though waiting for the other to break.

“You wouldn’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” he said. “It would just be pretend. None of it would be real.”

“All right,” I said slowly. “If you think that’s best.”

“Oh, now that’s brilliant.” He let go of my hair and lifted himself off the bed. “Well, I’m going to go get started on the monument, and why don’t you get started on cleaning downstairs? I don’t know what you and Tom got up to, but you’re going to need to sort out that mess by the door, Lily.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Now would be good,” he said, and, reaching over, plucked the cup of coffee neatly from my hand.

He disappeared from the room, and I lay on the bed, trying to will energy into my limbs.

I could hear him singing downstairs as he rummaged through cupboards, out of key and strangely pitched.

I moved when I felt the chill steal over me.

I had been very nearly naked under the sheet, wearing only underwear. I didn’t think that he had noticed.

—

In the days that followed, Andrew got to work outside, and I cleaned the house.

I didn’t mind the cleaning. I enjoyed it, actually, in that it gave me something to do.

As I worked, I thought mostly of Sam. When the work became tedious, I imagined that he was in the next room, and that I would speak to him once I was finished.

Often, I didn’t see Andrew until the evening, when he came in for dinner. I always wore a nice dress and tried my best with the cooking, but Andrew was happy with anything.

While it wasn’t the situation I had imagined for myself, I had the comfort and safety of Andrew, while getting incredible rewards—everything was designer, expensive, the best of the best: a leather reclining chair, a rosewood sideboard, a chandelier made of Murano glass, an LED face mask, a cashmere cardigan, the cosmetics I had sold but couldn’t afford. I had never looked better.

Andrew rarely did Personal Tasks—a couple of days after his return, he received a jersey of his favorite footballer, Maximo Igale.

He seemed content with the reward, and wore it most days, but otherwise, he didn’t bother to check his little screen.

He spent most of his time outside, mostly working on his monument, which seemed to be an immense pile of rubbish which towered higher each day.

There was the packaging that my rewards came in, and other items that people had left behind, and things around the house that had broken, and unidentifiable lumpen objects that had survived the fire.

It looked hideous, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him so.

For the rest of the day, he puttered about, sometimes trying to mend the fence around the perimeter, and sometimes, worryingly, walking around and talking to himself.