The East Carmine Marriage Market

I followed the rays of the setting sun out of the village along West Street, and sat on a bench to draft my telegram to Constance. Neither the nonadventure with the Last Rabbit nor the Oz Memorial nor the disgraced Yellow postman would actually impress, and mentioning Jane’s odd view of the Collective would be anathema. Constance had confided before I left that the things she looked for most in a husband were “incurious unambition” and “an ability to follow orders,” so I composed the telegram along the lines of how much I wanted to discharge my Civil Obligation to the Collective in the most productive manner, and how I thought of her all the time. I tried a poem: Oh, Constance Oxblood, my heart in full flood gushes, torrentlike, over rainburst stream and scrub. ! ¹ ™ - t hat Cm nn dml. Prove to you that I’m no dud. dud? Bud cud stud It wasn’t working. I was going to have to outsource my romantic thoughts to someone who could actually write poetry. I put my notebook away and gazed at the sun, which had just begun to dip below the Western Hills. The light was dropping fast, and the slopes were now black and shapeless in the lee of the daylight. It was the start of the gloaming, the transitional period between seen and unseen. It was about the time, in fact, that the janitor would strike the arc. As if on cue, there was a bright flicker from behind me as the streetlamp burst into life, bathing the center of the town in strong artificial light. It was not just a way of extending the day but also a signal that any residents still out and about should think about returning. I could see the roof mirrors of the village swing around to pick up the light so that the beam splitters, Luxfer prisms and intensifiers that brought interior light during the day could service the village at night.

When I was a kid, we used to play dusk running, where the last one back to the safety of the streetlight was the winner. It was usually either Richard or Lizzie, but one evening it was decided that a champion dusk runner must be established, so they both went and stood in the center of the playing field and waited for the night to roll in. The rest of us stood expectantly in the town square, exchanging wagers and giggling. The first to funk out was the loser, the last one back the winner. Lizzie was first in, but Richard wasn’t the winner. He was found eight months later a mile beyond the Outer Markers by Greys on coppicing duty. He was identified only by his spoon; his postcode was reallocated a day later. No one tried dusk running after that.

Within a few minutes the river, stockwall and linoleum factory had all vanished, swallowed up in the rolling wall of darkness that was sweeping across the land. I abandoned my seat when the shadows became empty holes in my vision and retreated to the safety of the town square. The streetlamp was now burning brightly, the low hiss of the arc and the occasional squeak and flicker working to dispel the fear of the night. Behind me, only the crackletrap atop the flak tower could still be seen, and that only as a silhouette against the rapidly darkening sky. “Hello!” said Tommo as he walked up. “I’ve been looking for you.” I returned his salutation and thanked him for fixing up the Rusty Hill gig. “Not a problem. Did you double-order the Lincoln for us, by the way?” “A bit of a snag, I’m afraid.”

“Don’t be afraid,” said Tommo, “or at least, not ofme. Courtland once beat Jim-Bob so hard he had blood in his wee.”

“I’ll get the Lincoln for you somehow.”

“I know you will. More important, are you going to marry my sister?” I would have to get used to how quickly Tommo could change the subject. “I didn’t even know youhad a sister.” “A state of affairs I am at efforts to maintain.” “You’ve lost me.”

“It’s pretty simple. You’re a Red of moderate perception and the son of a swatchman. The fine, upstanding Red womenfolk of this cesspool will be fighting over your plums like dogs about a freshly dead carcass.”

“Graphically put, if also a little disgusting. But I’m sorry, I’m on a half promise to an Oxblood.” Tommo raised his eyebrows. Not much impressed him, but this did. I explained about how my potential union to the Oxblood family would be my ticket to the easy life. We would be jointly running the family stringworks come Josiah Oxblood’s retirement, and it was well known that the Oxbloods were pretty much rolling in moolah.

“They have three permanent servants and a Leapback-compliant gyrocar,” I boasted, “and eat colorized food as a matter of course.”

“They’re also notoriously Redcentric,” he murmured.

This was true, too. Countless generations of Oxbloods had been choosing their mates wisely, and it was rumored that, paired with a suitably high-Redceptor husband, Constance might produce offspring who would surpass the Redness of the Crimsons, and topple them from the Red prefecture.

“Are you anywhere near the front of the queue,” asked Tommo, “or just a sad wannabe? Put it this way: Do you have pet names for each other?”

“We’ve shortlisted a few possibilities, but nothing’s fixed.”

Constance’s opinions on the matter, sadly, were entirely conservative. She had thought my suggestion of “snootchy bear” as an endearment a tad risque, was tempted with a more traditional “dear” or “honey” and had conceded to a tentative “honey bear” as a compromise, but only in private.

“The union is not quite as inevitable as I make out,” I confessed. “Standing between me and a supremely rosy future is a po-faced slack-jaw named Roger Maroon.”

“A Maroon?” said Tommo. “I’d duck out now while you still have your dignity.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” I said quickly. “She’s quite affable in spite of her choosy Redcentric fickleness, and our courting has not been without a few moments. She has allowed me on several occasions to take her to a tea dance.”

“How scandalously forward of you. Have you tangoed?”

“Not yet,” I said slowly, “but we’re almost there.”

Actually, Constance had refused me a tango on the grounds that it was a “gateway dance” to something bolder, such as a lambada. If we’d done that, Old Man Magenta would have insisted we marry in order not to further offend public decency.

“Sadly,” I continued, “she’s also danced with Roger.”

“Looks like she’s hedging her ballroom bets as wisely as her bedroom ones.”

“I suppose so.”

“It’s all academic anyway,” said Tommo with a laugh. “Once you get to know the fillies in this village, all notions of running the family stringworks will vanish like thistledown in a nor’easter.”

“I’m not staying, Tommo.”

“Well, let’s just pretend you decide to take up residence. C’mon, Eddie, run with me on this one.”

“Okay,” I said with a sigh. “Let’s hear it.”

“Excellent!” he cried, clapping his hands together. “Here’s how I see your wedding prospects in this glorious sinkhole of ours: Since you look like too bright a fellow to dilute your color with anything other than the good old House of R., your choices among the Red crumpet in the village are, to say the least, limited. Once you subtract all the Greys, men and other hues from the three thousand or so people living here, there are one hundred and twenty-five potential Red womenfolk. You do the sums. Thirty-nine are already married, fourteen are widowed and nineteen have partners off at Reboot. Seventeen are spinsters over the age of fifty, and twenty-eight are under sixteen. How many left?”

“Nine.”

“Right. Up for their Ishihara this year and thus available for nuptials are my sister Francesca, Daisy Crimson, Lisa Scarlet and Lucy Ochre. If those don’t suit, Rose Madder, Cassie Flamingo and Jennifer Cochineal will be up for their Ishihara next year. If you feel like putting a spinster out of her misery, still on the prowl are Tabitha Auburn and Simone Russo.”