The Two Confessions

by John Whitbourn

  It was done in unhurried, seen-it-all-before, manner: as well it might, for this was a familiar drill. None of them spoke to or acknowledged the old man. Discouraged by their confident precautions the 'rain' ceased, its pitter-patter gradually dying away.

  Then he was left all alone again, in the now darkened library. He was amazed to find himself weeping, only alerted to the fact by the fall of teardrops onto his robe.

  Even as a boy and all through the too-long years he'd always refused to wave a white flag at life. Only once before had he weakened - and that was the day he lost her. But this was unconditional surrender. The tears became great heaving sobs torn from deep inside his shrivelled chest.

  'Where did it go wrong?' he asked the echoing empty room. 'When did all this start?'

  ************

  The answer to that was: long before he thought.

  In the beginning was the Power and the Power slept, and whilst it slept it dreamed.

  Tired of activity since the start of time, it chose to rest and escape the torrent of sensation. There was a period of total repose, a blank black interlude from which no light or sign of life escaped. Then the dreams began.

  Bubbles and whirlpools of activity boiled to the surface of that part in which it stored its memories and thoughts. A minute degree of wakefulness returned. Things had slipped since the sleep began and the Power's private universe had gone its own way. Without permission, tiny motes of matter had gathered and coalesced to form galaxies. Within them suns had exploded into being and spoilt the infinite night. Such gross insubordination!

  The Power lazily considered these signs of rumbustious anarchy and then fed on the nearest spiral form, rending it apart into nourishment. The cleansing hand reached on towards all the others - but at the last moment was withheld. The Power restrained its momentary flare of anger. After long neglect a few cobwebs were only to be expected. It would let them live a little longer before visiting due punishment. Replete, the Power slept again.

  One dream was persistent and intriguing. A current of sleep-castrated excitement slithered through the Power's expanse. It dreamt that a keyhole had opened up, through which one could peer into an altogether different universe. Yet that was unlikely, for such a thing was forbidden by the strictest and most eternal of rules. The Power, and its countless brothers and sisters, and even their cruel superiors ascending into infinite heights, were all of them barred from travelling, in anything else but thought. And even then any trip was by invitation only and bound with humiliating conditions. The Power ignored the implausible, unsettling, temptation for many millennia - but the dream persisted.

  Its view seemed fixed; persistent, the tiny scene visible through the portal hard-edged and real. The Power might have presumed this a state of being that actually was - save that that was impossible. More likely was an unusually vivid intersection with another Power's personal creation. Which wasn't uncommon and supposedly the way the Powers bred.

  Unable to resist, the small proportion of the Power not in wearied sleep, drifted towards the keyhole.

  ************

  It looked through and saw that the scene was true. Rock barred the way but it being in molten state meant the Power could bore a tunnel through with just a look. The way was cleared.

  Nothing occurred for a very long time, though the view itself was entrancing enough. Sometimes the Power surrendered to total sleep but when any portion was even half awake it kept its 'eye' pressed to the gap.

  Then, much later, some activity presented itself. The Power's eye winked open and beheld life forms. It studied them and their past and future and it amused the Power to tell them the truth: namely that 'one day, through this portal, I will behold your Messiah....'

  They left, but soon returned with other 'people'. Over time, there came a small but steady stream of them. They were most attentive and polite. Therefore, in return, over the centuries when sufficiently awake and playful, the Power gave them the same good news.

  U[U[U[U[U[U[U

  ************

  THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1994

  ************

  cHAPTER 2

  ‘Well, damn your eyes then!’

  The cabby considered his passenger's verdict on the view. He'd been around and seen a thing or two. Two decades in the trade had left him no longer sure where 'normal' ended and 'strange' began. If someone wanted to stop and get out and curse, that was their business - and good business too, since they were paying for the lost time. Only idle curiosity prompted his enquiry about what so enraged his fare in the distant prospect of London.

  The stocky young man span round, revealing a face in thrall to powerful emotions. Momentary concern made the cabby recall the cutlass tucked away beneath his perch.

  ‘What?’ said the young man. ‘What? What d'you want?’

  The cabby whistled through his teeth.

  ‘Blimey! I only asked. Don't jump in me face. All I asked was what's amiss?’

  The horses required some quietening, long service allowing them to pick up on their master's alarm. Meanwhile, the passenger composed himself and turned back to the panorama of the metropolis.

  ‘Now there's a tricky question,’ he mused aloud, in bitter tones. ‘Where shall I start?’

  ‘Eh?’ The cabman's interest in his human cargo had naturally dulled as the years went by, but he thought this one had the makings of a decent tavern-tale. It merited a little effort. ‘I don't catch y'drift, sir.’

  ‘You asked what I object to in Babylondon. Well, take your pick - select a steeple: I'm told there's a church for each day of the year!’

  It hardly needed checking but they both looked. The evening-sunlit domes of St Paul's and St Guy's (sometimes still called Westminster Abbey) were only the centre of a great circle of spires, towers and steeples extending right to the City walls. Even the one breach in same, at London Bridge Station, was so blessed. A few constructions competed for size; some factory chimneys, the 'Parliament' and Royal Palace, the 'Exchange' and golden cupola of the Guildhall, pierced the smoke level; but in reality they knew their place. If any should still presume to challenge the supremacy of the spiritual there was the black bulk of the Papal Westminster Citadel to correct them. Watt's 'The Defeat of Mammon' monument in the 'square mile', and St Peter's Column, recently restored, looming over Lepanto Square, made the same point in less intimidating manner. Lessons had been written in stone.

  ‘More, probably,’ agreed the cabby, harsh suspicion now entering his voice.

  ‘I dare say,’ the young man continued. ‘And so there's fair reason for spitting on the place, if no other. And that's a happy choice of words! It's because of those places I'm spat out of London - and every-bloody-thing else. I wish a lightning bolt on each and every one!’

  The cabman's voice became low and level. Preoccupied, his passenger didn't register the change.

  ‘Are you expelled? Carrying a dicta, am I?’

  The man shook his head.

  ‘No, don't fret, you haven't broken canon law in 'aiding' me. I'm not under interdict or excommunicate. They dealt with me by 'administrative order'.’

  ‘Oh aye...?’

  ‘Mind you, one feels much the same as the other.’

  The cabby thought a while before responding: a departure amongst his swift-witted type, which should have swung alarum bells in itself. He twitched fretfully at the horses' reins.

  ‘What's your grievance, mister?’ he then asked, slow and deliberate. ‘Are you apostate?’

  His passenger turned again and shrugged.

  ‘I told you: I'm not full 'bell, book and candle' if that's your worry. I've to go and 'pause and reflect'. Only right now it's not having the effect they had in mind. 'Blessed are the poor' is it? Not in my book they're not, and if their book says diff-…. Hey! What are you doing?’

  The crash of a trunk down from the coach roof interrupted his bitter speech. His gear was being off-loaded with minimum respect.

  ‘Bloody obvious
I should have thought,’ said the cabman.

  ‘Hang fire - you can't dump me here!’

  The cabby's laugh was malicious.

  ‘Oh no? Bide and watch me. And don't think to interfere or you'll be earless as well as apostate.’

  To illustrate the point he slid out just the hilt of the concealed cutlass.

  The young man was furious – and also worried. But for the moment fury was foremost.

  ‘I'd didn't say I was apost-....’

  ‘Turk, Jew, Druid or atheist may ride with I and welcome,’ interrupted the cabby. ‘Drunks and fornicators I carry likewise - but not a turncoat: not at any price. I'm true Church me.’

  His now ex-client dashed to stand in the road. He oughtn't to have been so surprised. For time out of mind, courtesy of Mother Church, St Christopher's Cab Guild had had the monopoly on London short-hauls: something to do with God's wish for full employment and similar nonsenses. Accordingly, cabbies could be prickly-pious.

  ‘City of London law says you must accept any fare!’

  Again there was that laugh.

  ‘And how will you go to law after I've driven over you? Eh? A flat, dead, litigant with ruts in him? I don’t think so. Clear the way or cop eight hoofs and four coach wheels!’

  He was as good as his threat and whipped the team round and then forward. Only an undignified scramble to the roadside prevented a none too accidental accident.

  ‘Think again, footslogger!’ shouted the cabby as he passed, not even deigning to look at the person he'd recently called 'sir'. ‘Consider well as you tread the road to Hell!’

  And then he was away, back down to his smoggy City.

  There was silence, free even of birdsong, there being an absence of trees for them to roost in. All means of concealment were kept cleared well back from major thoroughfares.

  The Great West Road was indeed like the path to perdition, being wide and easy going and yet joyless. The best the spring day could do failed to sweeten its features. Abandoned, the traveller looked about and, though trying hard, could find no encouragement in the sere surroundings. Ditched just two miles out of Babylondon - maybe less if that much detail could still be seen looking back - a long slog lay ahead. His destination, the fortified grimness of Heath Row Coach Park, straddled the twelfth milestone west. Worse still, he expected only cold comfort there: a maelstrom of transients and the sharks that preyed upon them.

  For the most fleeting of moments he wished to just... lay down, to struggle no more, and peacefully find reunion with the dust. Then he recalled that dust was all he was, whatever all the others purported to believe, and that only darkness followed the final closing of the eyes. Being, however tedious, was better than un-being. He had to keep faith with that.

  And therefore he had to eat what was put before him, feigning enjoyment of the present's tasteless offerings. The only way to the years ahead lay across Heath Row, all other routes being closed to him. Accordingly, its joys must be sampled and whining only served to poison the slog.

  He reset his face into the belligerent smirk it was easiest with - and straightaway felt better for it. 'Down but not out,' he repeated to himself, 'down but not out!’ That was the only manly attitude to take and he repented of any other, however momentarily maintained. Half carrying and half dragging the heavy trunk, and keeping a wary lookout for footpads, he resumed his journey.

  There was the chance, albeit a poor one, of a late-running 'longrider coach' at the Park or, second best, shelter at Colnbrook or one of the other hamlets which dotted the Waste. Failing that, one of the weird solitaries who chose this place as home might - after due inspection and reward - give refuge in their barricaded cottage. Push-come-to-shove he could even sit out the night in an abandoned dwelling, refusing to surrender to sleep or speculate how his refuge came to be blackened and tumbled.

  'Down but not out'. If you determinedly sought it there was always hope: unfortunately not enough for optimism, but just sufficient, doled out in miser doses by life, to keep you persevering.

  On the other hand, dusk was on its way, the time when those - human and otherwise - who drew a more predatory living from the Great Road came out to play. He'd heard of one band who saw fit to skin their victims and leave the pelt on the highway for next morning's wheels to trundle over. Others were said to hold human roasts to celebrate their robberies. Whilst safe behind London's walls he'd always scoffed and pronounced them 'smugglers’ tales', designed to chill the blood and keep nosey-parkers indoors. Now, out on the heath and lonely, like a pea on a drum under the darkening sky, he was less sanguine.

  With such cheerful thoughts as company, ancient habits reasserted themselves and he felt a powerful urge to pray. The temptation was - with effort - resisted. Instead he struck an inner bargain: that if he came through all this he'd wrench some benefit from it and learn his lesson. Misfortune was only opportunity in disgusting disguise. If he survived, ever after he'd keep his subversive opinions to himself.

  Barred from the capital of his own nation, Samuel Melchizedek Trevan sweated his way into exile in the far West.

  U[U[U[U[U[U[U

  cHAPTER 3

  He was set upon that road, quite unexpectedly, not two weeks before. Previously, all was well and every hope and plan in glorious ascendance. Then there arrived a series of visitors, each bearing fresh instalments of misfortune.

  ‘I have just seen Hell!’ said the first of them, a priest.

  ‘No you haven't,’ Samuel answered, ‘not here anyway. I've been set up!’

  He still had to raise his voice to be heard above the machines, even though they'd adjourned to the comparative peace of his office. The workplace noise inferno easily prevailed over London's street sounds outside. But he was of a mind to bawl anyway, whether in a Whitechapel factory or High Mass at the Vatican.

  The Churchman swung round to confront Trevan's outrage, drawing close.

  ‘Is that what you think?’ he roared back, just as angry, though more in cold control. ‘Is that really how you delude yourself?’

  His companions shuffled forward, seeking conversation range.

  Samuel spread wide his hands, a visible protestation of innocence.

  ‘I just don't see what's wrong! It's been like this for ages. No one's complained!’

  ‘Incorrect,’ snapped a prim and disapproving curate, hitherto occupied making copious notes of all that the Church inspection party saw.

  ‘Apart from them, I meant,’ Samuel ranted, waving at the Labour Guilds observers, who weren't even bothering to conceal a festival of smirks and sneers. ‘No one who works here's complained!’

  ‘If you meet all opposition with such unreasoning fury,’ replied the presiding priest, once again confident aloofness personified, ‘I should imagine both labourers and artisans were too terrified to protest.’

  ‘Fair point, Father,’ chipped in one Guild man, a Turkic type clearly very proud of his parish-convenor's sash. ‘All our tip-offs were anonymous.’

  ‘Yes..., so you said.’ To be fair, the priest seemed glad he had the plain evidence of his eyes to rely upon, rather than just the Guilds’ testimony.

  ‘Balls! Cack! Be quiet and give your arse a rest!’

  Simple abuse silenced them when little else now would. Contrary to what they'd thought, it transpired Trevan had been restraining the bulk of his annoyance. All of the balance now came tumbling out to play and he was wild-eyed.

  ‘I tell you people are fighting to work here,’ he yelled. ‘I'm turning them away all the time: no one pays better than me!’

  The priest, a Cornishman by the sound of him, looked fit to strike Trevan at being spoken to thus. Internal engines of self-control, every bit as powerful as the lathes labouring all around, cut in to forestall such self-indulgence.

  He stared at the factory owner and somehow aborted expression of first and best thoughts. The little group were hushed and expectant. Even some nearby machine tenders, who wouldn't normally dare to slacken or look up, s
topped to await developments, imperfectly glimpsed through the office windows.

  ‘And don't you just get your money's worth!’ the priest said eventually, as soon as he could trust his tongue. ‘Come with me!’

  So saying he grasped Trevan by the shoulder and Samuel had no choice but to be born along. Left to themselves, force for force, Trevan might have made mincemeat of him. In reality, it being just one man, however blessed by nature, against a civilisation, the contest was forgone. The Guildsmen and sundry Church administrators tagged behind. They re-entered the workplace. Shouting became obligatory.

  ‘Some things just seem to be invisible to you!’ the priest told his captive, right in his ear. ‘So let's see if I can't break the spell. Observe!’ He pointed to a nearby crowded workbench. ‘Now, are those children or what?’

  ‘Yes, but-....’

  ‘You don't maintain they're albino pygmies, I take it?’

  Apparently not.

  ‘It's only finishing work - no hot metal stuff. And their parents begged me to have them; the families need the money!’

  ‘Forbidden by law, Trevan, as you well know - and likewise the strap your foremen employ to keep them at it.’

  ‘How else do you make urchins concentrate?’

  ‘What?’

  Samuel repeated himself - still the soul of offended reason. Underwhelmed, the priest's lip curled.

  ‘How indeed?’ he roared back.

  ‘But a schoolteacher'd treat 'em the same!’

  ‘And speaking of which,’ said the priest, ‘where is the schoolroom obligatory for apprentice-employing establishments? Have I somehow missed it?’

  ‘You know what space is like in London. Even for this pokey place I have to pay…. Hang on, who ordered...?’

  The noise was dying. Someone had dared to damp down the great drive engine behind the far wall; an augury of things to come. The ranks of spindles it powered span more slowly. Thwarted lathes were being turned off.