The Gradual

by Christopher Priest

  Kan straightened. The ship was being secured to the quay.

  ‘The ship is at the dock,’ she said. ‘Give me your stave and wait here. Do not try to leave the ship.’

  She took the stave from me then slipped it into the large bag she was carrying. Without another word she left me. She passed quickly through into the superstructure of the ship.

  54

  When I walked back through the ship I saw that most of the other passengers were crowding by the gangways. As soon as the gangplanks were in place they began disembarking, jostling each other in their haste to be off the ship after the three-day voyage. I saw them streaming across towards the Shelterate building, prominently placed on the quay here as everywhere else. I could see the familiar striped awning, with the ambiguous figures of the adepts sitting or standing beneath, affecting not to look closely as the passengers walked past with their wheeled suitcases and backpacks. Every now and again one of the adepts would walk out from under the canopy, apparently at hazard, to speak to a selected passenger.

  Money changed hands.

  I did not see Kan leave the ship.

  I stared across at the town. I had memories of Hakerline Promise, but on the first trip I had only ever visited the town at night. I remembered drinking too much, eating food I found too spicy. It was the end of a long tour. In reality I knew nothing about the place.

  A wide road ran beside the harbour in front of a long parade of buildings and this was where most of the crowd was. Everyone I could see was dressed in holiday clothes. Cars and motorbikes weaved slowly through the throng, with a noise of revving engines and rude blasts of horns. Music blared out from several places: a cacophony of sounds and rhythms, in brutal competition with each other. Everyone seemed to be shouting at once. Many of the cafés and restaurants had tables and chairs placed outside on terraces and these were crammed with customers. Neon lights shone from every vertical surface: places to dance, to drink, to eat, to meet people, to watch live performances. When night came those signs would light up the town.

  Kan returned unexpectedly, coming up beside me as I stood at the side of the ship. I had not seen her crossing the harbour area although I had a clear view of it and I was watching for her. Once again she stood disconcertingly close beside me. She handed back my stave.

  ‘We thought you were in transit through Hakerline,’ she said. ‘You wish to stay, so tonight you will remain on board this ship. It is the only place that’s safe for you.’

  ‘Safe? Wouldn’t a hotel be as safe?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m tired of being on boats. I want a normal bed in a room that doesn’t rock from side to side. I want to take a long shower, eat in a proper restaurant.’

  ‘No choice. The gradient is extreme here. If you went ashore we would lose you.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘I have talked with the others. There is one called Renettia. You know her?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Renettia is my supervisor, my mentor. She trained me. I always go to her for advice. She agrees with me about this – you must stay aboard the ship tonight. Tomorrow will be better.’

  I stared back at her, feeling rebellious. So many times I had accepted these directions from the adepts. So many times I believed what they said would happen, or what would not happen.

  ‘What if I just do what I think is right?’ I said.

  ‘Can’t stop you. Stay on the boat, though. You can’t leave the harbour without Shelterate clearance. They will want your licence. You don’t have one. They will insist. You will offer your stave. They will take your stave away. Hakerline is different from other islands. No one lands without licence.’

  ‘You sound certain.’

  ‘I was born here. I know. No one goes ashore without licence. This is a resort island. This is how it works. No licence, no entry. They would put you back on the ship anyway. Or intern you.’

  ‘But I came here before. On my first tour.’

  ‘Then you were licensed.’

  ‘I couldn’t have been,’ I said, thinking of everything that followed the tour, when I was back in Glaund. But I knew I was losing this argument. A resigned feeling was growing in me.

  ‘Renettia will try to get you a pass from the Shelterate office, but that can’t be done now. Tomorrow. So you stay aboard here one more night. We’ve arranged that. The cabin is available until tomorrow midday. The ship sails then. Be ready before that.’

  55

  It was still only afternoon. The temperature was high, the humidity awful, the noises from the town intrusive. I felt trapped and abandoned by Kan, left on the ship to fend for myself. I felt I might be at risk: maybe the crew had not been told about me, and a routine search of the ship would discover me. Would they think I was a stowaway? I glanced up at the windows of the bridge, but they were half silvered, like those of many of the ships I had been on. It was impossible to tell if any of the officers were there. And because I was no longer on the move, the thought would not go away that some authority figure with a warrant for my arrest might come on board to find me.

  I picked up my belongings, which I had brought to the deck ready for my departure, then carried them down to the ship’s passenger decks, looking for the cabin I had been using. Now that the ship’s engines were not running there was no air conditioning, but for the time being it was cooler and the air was more breathable inside than in the open. The narrow companionways were lit only by emergency bulbs, but in my cabin the electrical power sockets and the lights were still working. The water that came out of both taps was lukewarm.

  I sat on my bunk, which I had left unmade, and considered what I should do. I was full of inertia: my mind felt blank, my spirits were low.

  I explored what I could of the rest of the ship. The passenger areas – cabins, companionways, the stairs, the exits to the boat decks, one of the gangplanks – were all open to me. I realized I could look around for a bigger or better cabin, but after I had looked at a few others I realized my existing cabin was no better or worse than any other. I stayed put.

  I did wonder if this was a chance to see if could discover where it was in the ship that the adepts travelled but I soon found that most other areas had been locked.

  The ship had a restaurant on board but it closed when the ship docked. I was already hungry. I could not get through until the morning on an empty stomach, so flagrantly breaching Kan’s instructions I went briefly ashore to a kiosk at the end of the quay. I had spotted this earlier from the ship. I bought some bread rolls, processed meat, cheese, fresh fruit, a can of beer and a couple of bottles of mineral water.

  As I walked back to the ship I was met by one of the ship’s officers. He confirmed what Kan had told me: the captain had received orders from the company office that I would be permitted to stay on board overnight. The ship would be locked down for the night, he went on, with only a skeleton crew: two men, whom I probably would not see.

  I passed the long slow evening alone. After eating some of the food and drinking the beer my mood lifted and I took out my violin. I practised on it for more than three hours, absorbing the music into my system like a recharge of energy. For the last hour I walked slowly along the companionways like a wandering minstrel, listening to the way the sound changed in the narrow, irregular spaces.

  I finished playing in one of the large saloons. The huge and empty room, with its multitude of bright surfaces and many fabrics on the walls and floor, had a resonant acoustic. It was an area of the ship soundproofed from outside, so the endless racket from the town was not a problem. I played until my arms and shoulders were aching, then returned to my cabin, restored in spirit.

  Later I took a shower, standing in the half-hearted and tepid dribble. The water ran out just as I had finished rinsing my hair and beard. Towelling myself I did something for which I had rarely had time or interest while I was travelling and stood before the full-length mirror attached to the wall of the shower cubicle.

  I first g
lanced quickly at the reflection of myself, then with a feeling of surprise I looked again, then I looked more closely, and finally I stared in astonishment.

  I had of course been looking at my reflection several times a day, but only superficial moments when brushing my teeth, combing my hair, and so on. I was used to seeing myself. I had felt for some years I was not ageing well – my skin had a sallow appearance, the flesh of my cheeks was starting to sag, deep creases had appeared around my eyes and mouth, there were wrinkles on my forehead, my neck, and worst of all a dewlap was starting to dangle around my throat. My new beard helped disguise it, but only partly.

  I was more than fifty years old, well into middle age. There was no escape from the reality that all the blessings of youth had fled. My physical appearance was frankly unappealing and I knew it was because I took hardly any physical exercise, or when I did so it was the wrong sort and was over too quickly, that when I worked I was usually seated, that I was careless with the kinds of food I ate, but mostly it was because I was no longer young and took poor physical care of myself.

  That night, alone on the ship, alone in my cabin, with time on my hands and little else to think about, I looked at myself as if at a stranger. I was amazed by what I saw.

  It was my eyes I noticed first. I was used to what I saw in the mirror: the invariable surrounding of dried or darkened skin, the puffy eyelids with scattered lashes, a distinct yellow tinge in the sclera, with several visible papillae. My eyes always made me look tired, strained, as if I had been reading too much and too long, staying awake instead of sleeping, a revelation of a generally unhealthy lifestyle. But now I saw that my eyes had cleared! The whites were almost untrammelled, with no trace of that unpleasant liverish tinge. The irises were the calm pale blue I had cherished when I was a young man. The eyelids looked taut. The darkness and looseness around the eyes had disappeared.

  I started examining myself with a feeling of increasing surprise and a growing sense of mystery. My face was more or less unlined, except for tiny creases where I smiled. My cheeks were smooth and firm. I pulled at the area below my chin, lifting the tufts of my beard and trying to see my throat and neck clearly. There was nothing loose there, no sagging, no sign of even an incipient dewlap.

  I found a hand mirror and held it behind my head while I looked in the main mirror. My hair was dark again, dark all over without a single streak of grey. There were none of those faded areas which had been spreading inexorably, and which, if I thought of them at all, I had deluded myself that perhaps they made me look mature, distinguished. And my hair was growing thickly again. I now had the same full head of hair that had been mine throughout my twenties and most of my thirties. The thin patch that I knew about but tried to pretend away, the increasing spread of baldness on the crown of my head, had entirely disappeared. I touched my scalp with a press of my fingers, feeling the healthy growth.

  My stomach was flat, my legs and arms were firmly muscled. My shoulders looked broader. The mat of untidy grey hair across my chest, straggling up around my throat, had all but vanished: I now had a faint sheen of dark chest hair. My buttocks were firm. My back was straight. When I expanded my chest the motion felt strong, pleasing. I reached down, touched my toes. I could not remember the last time I had been able to do that. Overall I was leaner without being thinner. I was in terrific shape.

  In some way I could not understand, something like two decades had been stripped from me. My body was once again that of a young man. I was still at least fifty-four years old, I thought and felt the same, the substance of all my memories and my experiences in life remained with me. I was unchanged. But I was also renewed.

  I had been vaguely aware that something was changing. I had been feeling a gain in strength, in stamina, I had been sleeping better. And I had seen some of the physical changes in the mirror. But small daily changes are imperceptible, and it was only during this solitary night in the ship that I fully noticed what had happened.

  Time fled from me – I suffered gradual detriment. Youth attached to me – I gained gradual increment. Balance remained.

  Absolute time, ship time: the difference became personal time lost.

  Absolute age, travel through the gradual: the difference led to personal rejuvenation gained.

  I slipped on some clothes then ran the length of the companionway, breathing the warm stale air but invigorated by the feeling of agility, strength, stamina that coursed through me. Afterwards my increased heart rate returned to normal almost immediately.

  How had this happened? The constant fresh air cleansed by the sea winds? The endless bounty of sunshine? Even, perhaps, the frequent stresses and strains of marching around island shores, burdened with my possessions, following the opaque and sometimes inconsistent instructions of the adepts? Certain parts of my body had felt the effects and after-effects of those incidents. But, no. That could not be the only reason. Other people exercised far more often and consistently than me and they did not see the years slipping away from their appearance.

  Once before, when I returned home after the first tour, I had been faced with a radical turn of events I could not comprehend. In the end, that baffling loss of time, or gain, had an explanation of sorts. I never fully grasped it, but for all that it was an explanation. Now I had suddenly lost years of my physical life, decades of my physical life, but in an altogether different way.

  Could this be another manifestation of the gradients of time, the gradual?

  When I was back in my cabin the feeling of being trapped bore down on me again. I took to the bunk. The small room was still too warm for comfort but I kept the cabin door wedged open. I lay awake.

  After an hour of this I managed to force the porthole open, sealed with rust or paint, but which gave way after a struggle. This allowed a refreshing breeze but also admitted the noises from the town. I sat up, leaned with my back against the cabin wall and the open porthole beside my head, listening to the racket from the shore: the shouting voices, occasional screams or loud laughter, music belting out from five or six separate loudspeakers, engines revving and roaring. At times I heard the penetrating electronic sirens of emergency vehicles, their warning lights flashing, as they pushed slowly through the crowded area, nudging the pedestrians aside.

  The night wore on. I remained unable to sleep. Eventually most of the motorbikes and sports cars were driven away, the rowdy shouts died down, no more ambulances appeared. Only the music remained, maddening me, because it was always difficult for me to hear music and make it unimportant. Any kind of music made me listen to it.

  When I first had the porthole open I found it more or less impossible to separate the music from the rest of the commotion in the noise-filled streets, but in the early hours the lack of other sounds meant I could discern the tunes, the harmonies. What they were playing was what I thought of as the lowest denominator of popular music: repetitive chords and simple tunes, heavy bass lines, a thudding, unchanging drumbeat, the words chanted or shouted. It was for me a form of private torture. It drilled into my mind, blanked my thoughts, gave me back nothing I could like. It made me fail to understand why others might like it.

  Then suddenly I was fully alert. They were playing something based on the main theme from Tidal Symbols!

  Who was it? A live group? A heavily amplified recording? I turned, pressed my face to the porthole gap, then my ear, to try to hear better, but the small circular window was designed only to open to a crack. There it was again! The main theme, the chordal progression, the brief elaboration, the shift of key. The music was mine because it came from my soul, my life, my emotions, because it was the first work of mine to be recorded, because it came from a remembered part of my life, because I loved it. It was a part of myself.

  Whoever was playing it, whoever was on the record, had turned it into something bland and loud and rhythmic, had made it cheap and repetitive, made it obvious and moronic, but it was still mine.

  The army had made my brother into a soulles
s soldier, but he was still mine.

  From my narrow view through the porthole I tried to see what I could of what was going on out there. Most of the buildings were at last darkened for the night, but a short parade of bars, cafés and clubs at street level were still lit with flashing neon signs. One of them had a picture window, brightly illuminated from within. I could see hardly any details but I could make out the blurrily silhouetted heads and shoulders of the people by the window, moving up and down, dancing to the repetitive, obvious, brainless version of my music.

  In the end I barely slept even after the music finally went quiet. I may have dozed for an hour or two, but it was with that unsatisfying feeling of semi-sleep, restless and aware, constantly shifting position. The sky was lightening in the east. Large cleaning vehicles moved slowly through the streets and the harbour zones. Some of the operatives yelled to each other and bins crashed and rattled as they were emptied into the hopper. Grinding motors roared from within the trucks as the trash was crushed and compacted.

  56

  I moved outside to the promenade deck before Kan returned to the ship. From the deck I had a good view of the harbour as well as most of the other decks. The ship was slowly returning to life as members of the crew filed back on board then went below to start up the pumps and generators. I saw two uniformed officials going to the Shelterate building and unlocking it. The striped awning was permanently in place but there were no adepts anywhere around.

  I was glad to breathe the fresh air and stretch my legs – I was still quietly celebrating the ease with which I could use my body. There was none of the stiffness I had felt in the past during the first hour or so after waking every morning. I realized it must have been the norm for some time but this morning was the first in which I really appreciated it.