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what’s happened so far, then leave you to it.”
    “It is okay, Mr. Morrow.” She spoke precisely, with a slight accent. “I know the film.”
    Only then did I notice that she was not implanted.
    I returned to my desk, sat down, and willed myself not to stare at the girl.
    The lesson progressed. Once, when I sensed that she was not looking, I glanced over at Claudine Hainault. The skin of her right temple was smooth, without the square, raised outline of the implant device.
    With five minutes to go before the bell, a boy looked up from the screen. He shook his head. “But Mr. Morrow... he died. And this was before... before the implants. How did people live without going mad?”
    I felt a tightness in my throat. “It was only two years ago,” I said. “You’ll learn all about that in Cultural Studies.”
    The class went silent. They were all staring at Claudine Hainault. To her credit, she affected an interest in the screen before her.
    Then the bell shattered the silence and all was forgotten in the mad scramble to be the first to quit the classroom.
    At four I followed the school bus as it crawled along the gritted lane between snow-drifted hedges. I lived in a converted farmhouse five miles from the school, and Claudine Hainault, I discovered with a pang of some emotion I could not quite define, was my neighbour—our houses separated by the grim, slate-grey expanse of the reservoir.
    The bus braked and the girl climbed down and walked along the track towards an isolated farmhouse, a tiny figure in a cold and inhospitable landscape. I watched her until she disappeared from sight, then I restarted the engine and drove home.
    I pulled into the driveway minutes later, unlocked the front door and stepped into a freezing house. The framed photographs of Caroline glimmered, indiscernible, in the twilight. I turned on the lights and the heating, microwaved an instant meal and ate in the lounge while listening to the radio news. I washed it down with a bottle of good claret—but even the wine made me think of the Hainault girl.
    For a long time I sat and stared out through the picture window. The Onward Station was situated only a mile away, a breathtaking crystalline tower, scintillating in the moonlight like a confection of spun ice. Tonight it illuminated the landscape and my lounge, a monument to the immortality of humankind, a tragic epitaph to all those who had suffered and died before its erection.

    The following Friday at first break, Miller approached me in the staff room. “So what do you make of the Hainault girl, Jeff?”
    I shrugged. “She’s very able,” I said non-committally.
    “I’m worried about her. She seems withdrawn... depressed. She doesn’t mix, you know. She has no friends.” He tapped the implant at his temple. “I was wondering... you’re good at drawing the kids out. Have a word with her, would you? See if anything’s troubling her.”
    He was too absorbed in relighting his cigarette to notice my stare. Troubling her? I wanted to ask; the poor girl isn’t implanted— what do you think is troubling her?
    I had spent the week doing my best not to think about Claudine Hainault, an effort that proved futile. I could not help but notice her every time I took year thirteen; how she always sat alone, absorbed in her work; how she never volunteered to answer questions, though I knew full well from the standard of her written work that she had the answers; how, from time to time, she would catch my eye and smile. Her smile, at these times, seemed at odds with her general air of sadness.
    At lunchtime I was staring out of the staff room window when I noticed a knot of kids gathered in the corner of the schoolyard. There were about six of them, confronting a single girl.
    I rushed out and crossed the tarmac. The group, mainly girls, was taunting Claudine. She faced them, cursing in French.
    “That’s quite enough!” I called. “Okay, break it up.” I sent the ringleaders off to visit