Sapphire and Steel

by Peter J. Hammond

  ‘But this this — corridor — it’s strong, you see.’ Sapphire was still looking at Rob as she spoke. ‘It has to be. But sometimes, in certain places, it becomes weakened. Like fabric. Worn fabric. And when there is pressure upon that fabric...’

  Rob recalled the sound he had heard. ‘Time comes in?’ he asked.

  Sapphire nodded. ‘Time comes in. Reaches in. Takes what it wants.’

  Rob looked at the room once more, then at Steel, then back to Sapphire. He looked stunned.

  ‘And we think that Time has broken through in that room,’ said Sapphire. ‘Broken through the fabric — and taken your parents.’

  Rob was still staring, open-mouthed, as Steel moved towards the attic bedroom door.

  ‘Come on,’ he ordered, as he walked into the room.

  Chapter Four

  Steel had wound up the two clocks from the kitchen. Rob and Helen had watched him as Sapphire performed her customary task of sensing and testing the atmosphere of the room. Now Steel was winding a small clock with a cartoon face, that had stood on the narrow bookshelf in the attic bedroom.

  The noise of the wind outside sounded thin and solitary as usual, up here at the top of the house. But, to Rob, the ticking of the three clocks inside seemed to compensate. He felt like telling Steel that it sounded like ‘old times’ to hear them working again. But Steel did not seem to be the kind of person who would appreciate a joke, so Rob said nothing as Steel began placing the three clocks at carefully strategic positions within the room.

  ‘So what happened to the clocks?’ Rob asked.

  Steel was arranging the larger of the two kitchen clocks so that he could see its face from any angle in the room. ‘They wound themselves down,’ was his only answer.

  Rob stared at the nearest clock. ‘But my father winds those every day.’

  ‘I expect he does,’ said Steel, standing back to survey his arrangement.

  ‘So how can clocks wind themselves down in just a fraction of a second?’

  There was no answer from Steel, so Rob turned to look at Sapphire. ‘It isn’t possible,’ he said to her.

  ‘I know,’ she gave him just a trace of the smile. ‘And yet it’s happened.’

  Rob turned to look at the clocks again but found that Steel was looking at him.

  ‘You say that you were in this room with your parents and your sister before going downstairs?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Rob answered.

  ‘And that’s the last you saw of your parents?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So where was the child?’

  Rob indicated. ‘Sitting up in bed.’

  Steel nodded to Sapphire, who led Helen to the bed, lifted her and sat her upon it.

  Steel looked at Rob. ‘Like that?’

  ‘More or less, yes,’ said Rob. He then saw that Helen was looking at him. She seemed troubled and unsure of things. ‘Just stay there, Helen,’ he said to her gently. ‘Just do as they say and stay there. Everything’s alright.’

  ‘Yes, Rob,’ whispered Helen, managing a small, nervous smile.

  Steel continued to organise Rob and the room. ‘And your father was where?’

  Rob pointed towards the small dressing table. ‘He always sat on the edge of there.’

  ‘Sit there, will you?’ ordered Steel.

  Rob stared at the man. ‘What?’

  ‘I said, sit there. Just sit as he was sitting when you last saw him.’

  Rob thought about it for a couple of seconds. He then walked to the dressing table and sat down on the very edge of it. He looked down at his father’s pouch and pipe that were now beside him. He reached down for them.

  ‘And please don’t touch anything.’

  As Rob withdrew his hand he wondered why Steel ever bothered to use the word ‘please’.

  ‘And your mother was sitting in this chair?’ Steel was pointing at the rocking-chair.

  ‘Yes.’

  Steel nodded yet again to Sapphire. She walked to the rocking-chair and sat in it. Steel then reached down for the book of traditional nursery-rhymes. He showed the book to Rob. ‘And this was the book that your mother was reading from?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Aloud?’

  ‘Yes.’

  As Steel handed the book to Sapphire, Rob remembered how his mother would read from the book, with his father sitting watching, and he realised fully at that moment just how much he missed them and the warm, safe comfort that they always seemed to provide. He also realised that he had taken that comfort too much for granted. He never once wanted to stay around while nursery-rhymes were being read. He had felt that he was slightly above all that. Now he wished that he had stayed. Just once. Just on that last occasion. Perhaps he could have helped, could have done something when this Time thing, whatever it was, came into the room.

  Steel’s voice interrupted his thoughts. ‘Which particular rhyme?’ Then, before Rob could adjust from those thoughts, ‘Which particular rhyme was being read aloud when the clocks stopped, when you heard the noise?’

  ‘I wasn’t here, was I? I was downstairs,’ said Rob.

  Questions, coming from Steel, were like part of an interrogation. ‘It is important to know the exact rhyme.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry but I don’t know it.’ Rob protested. As always, Sapphire spoke at just the right moment, easing the tension. ‘Helen,’ she said to the child. ‘Do you remember which nursery rhyme it was?’

  Helen said nothing.

  ‘She’s not very talkative at first.’ Rob said, glad to break off the exchange with Steel. ‘Not very talkative with strangers.’

  Sapphire gave Rob the cool, bright smile which immediately made him want to assist her at any price. ‘Then you try,’ she suggested.

  Rob looked across the room to his sister. ‘Helen,’ he called. She looked at him. ‘When Mama...’ Rob decided to choose his words carefully, ‘Just before Mama went away. Do you remember?’

  Helen gave only the slightest of nods.

  ‘What was she reading to you? Which nursery-rhyme?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ said Helen, quietly.

  ‘You do know, Helen. You must know.’

  Helen shook her head but Rob persevered, trying to be as gentle and as persuasive as possible. ‘So which one? Tell us, Helen, please.’

  Helen sat there on the bed for a long moment. She moved her eyes, but not her head, to look first at Sapphire, then at Steel, then back to Rob.

  ‘Best one.’ Helen whispered.

  ‘Your favourite?’ Rob felt pleased with his progress ‘“Ring-a-ring o’ roses”?’

  Helen nodded once more and gave a slight, almost shy, smile.

  Sapphire was already turning the pages of the book. ‘“Ring-a-ring o’ roses” is derived from the times of the plague,’ she told Steel. ‘Could be one more factor. Even the final one.’ She found the page in the book.

  Steel had moved to the centre of the room. He looked at the three clocks in turn, then proceeded to study the walls and ceiling of the attic room. Rob and Helen watched him.

  ‘Read the rhyme slowly.’ Steel instructed, as he kept a watch on the room. ‘Stop whenever I raise my hand. When I lower my hand, continue.’

  ‘Right,’ said Sapphire, the open book ready on her lap.

  ‘But, if I shout to you to stop, then stop immediately.’ Steel was still watching the walls and ceiling. ‘If I say, “Back, back”, reverse the order of the words.’

  ‘I know.’ Sapphire nodded and Rob noticed that her face was very serious now. The almost lazy coolness had gone. In its place was an expression of deep concentration.

  ‘But carefully.’ Steel warned her, looking equally serious. ‘Not one mistake. Not even one letter said wrongly.’

  Sapphire nodded and waited, the book now raised in her hands. Rob was watching. Helen watched also, the teddy-bear still held close to her. The varied, but steady, ticking of the three clocks filled the room.

  ‘Begin now,’ said
Steel as he watched the room.

  Sapphire began to read slowly from the book, pausing for long moments between each set of words. ‘Ring-a-ring o’ roses. A pocket full of posies...’

  Helen smiled as she heard the words of favourite rhyme. Then Steel raised his hand, just slightly, and Sapphire stopped reading. Steel looked carefully at the walls and the ceiling, from his position in the centre of the room. He then lowered his hand.

  ‘A-tishoo! A-tishoo!’ read Sapphire from the book. ‘We all fall down.’ She waited a moment but there was no further signal from Steel. ‘The king has sent his daughter...’

  Then something. A very faint rustling sound somewhere in the room. Steel raised his hand quickly and Sapphire immediately stopped reading. Steel looked around at the room. Nothing could be seen although the faint rustling sound continued.

  Then the larger of the kitchen clocks stopped. Steel glanced quickly at the clock. Then, watching the room once more and with the steady concentration of a man defusing a time-bomb, he lowered his hand.

  ‘To fetch a pail of water...’ read Sapphire from the book.

  The sound increased. It was like a shaking, a pattering, a fluttering.

  ‘A-tishool A-tishoo!’ read Sapphire.

  The sound deepened now in intensity and became more of a vibrant rumbling, more like the sound that Rob had heard earlier that evening.

  ‘We all fall down.’

  Rob could imagine giant sails in a wind. There was even a slight current of air in the room now, like a light breeze that picked at Steel’s hair. And Rob could almost visualise the fabric as it shook and strained under pressure. He imagined a fabric like skin. A living fabric. And he began to feel frightened. Even Sapphire had glanced up from the book. But Steel’s hand remained lowered as he focused his attention on the room, looking for the very source of the sound.

  The cartoon hands, on the face of the bedroom clock, stopped. Only the one small clock remained working.

  ‘The bird upon the steeple...’ read Sapphire.

  It appeared as the third and last clock stopped its ticking. Steel saw it first, then Rob. Sapphire was also aware of its presence. It was a moving, flickering shape that appeared high up, near the apex of the end wall. It seemed, at first, to be a part of the wall texture itself. As if the plaster of the wall was shifting. Then it appeared to take on a series of quick, broken images. Rob felt that it looked like pieces of old and faded moving-film, except that these images were three-dimensional. Rob also thought that he heard, under the rumbling of the skin-like fabric, the sound of voices that seemed to squeal with laughter or pain, or both.

  Steel raised his hand and Sapphire stopped reading at once. The movement on the patch of wall, and the half-seen pictures, seemed to freeze. The sound stayed at a constant level.

  Steel took a few cautious steps towards the end of the room and halted. He looked up at the patch of wall.

  Rob turned anxiously towards Sapphire, but Sapphire had anticipated his concern. She looked at him and put her finger to her lips,

  Steel began to lower his hand very slowly and Sapphire spoke the next line of the rhyme simultaneously.

  ‘Sits high...’

  The shapes on the wall began to move. The sound began to increase.

  ‘Above...’ continued Sapphire, her eyes moving from the book, to Steel, to the wall, to the book again. And Rob and Helen stared, wide-eyed, at the section of wall as the voice sounds and the fabric sound seemed to overlap, and the shifting pictures and shapes jostled and mingled into one another.

  ‘...the people.’ Then, as Sapphire raised her voice so that the last two words of the rhyme could be heard, the patch of wall began to move outwards, as if something behind it was pushing at it. As if the wall itself was melting.

  Steel shouted loudly. ‘Stop!’

  Sapphire stopped reading.

  ‘Back! Back!’ shouted Steel. ‘Take it back!’

  ‘People, the, above,’ read Sapphire slowly. ‘High, sits.’

  Rob stared as the wall appeared to check its melting effect.

  ‘Steeple, the, upon, bird, the.’ As Sapphire continued to read the words backwards, the pictures upon the wall began to fade. So, too, did the sounds. By the time Sapphire had read the words ‘Down, fall, all, we,’ the patch of wall had returned to normal and the sounds had completely died away.

  ‘Down fall all we?’ said Steel, in the now quiet room, and it was like a question put to the room itself. And Rob watched Steel as the man breathed out deeply and slackened his body, like someone who had just performed a strenuous mental task.

  It was Helen who broke the moment of relaxed stillness. ‘Pictures,’ she said, pointing a small finger at the far wall. ‘Saw pictures.’

  ‘Yes, Helen. But it’s alright now,’ said Rob. And he moved across the room to the bed and sat down next to his sister.

  Sapphire had closed the book. She was looking at Steel as if waiting for his next move.

  ‘The fabric you were talking about,’ Rob began, trying to catch Sapphire’s eye. ‘Was it...?’

  But Sapphire was still looking at Steel, as if there were more important questions than Rob’s to be asked at that particular moment. ‘We can’t seal it yet, then?’ she asked Steel.

  Steel looked up at last. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not until we’ve brought those people back.’ And his moment of relaxation was over. Once more, he was businesslike and coldly efficient. ‘I want that book taken downstairs and destroyed.’

  Sapphire nodded as she rose from the chair, the book tucked firmly under one arm.

  ‘Has the child somewhere else to sleep?’ Steel was switching off the bedside lamp.

  ‘Yes,’ said Rob. ‘There’s a spare bed in the room next to mine.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Next floor down.’

  ‘Then take her there.’ Steel picked up the two kitchen clocks, moved to the door and held it open, ushering the others out from the room that was now dark and empty looking.

  ‘And is there a key to this door?’ asked Steel, as they moved out on to the landing.

  Rob shook his head. ‘No. It was lost years ago.’

  Steel pulled the door to, slamming it tightly shut. ‘Then I want no-one to enter this room. Is that understood?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rob.

  ‘Not until we’ve done what we have to do.’

  Rob nodded automatically, wondering what it was that had to be done, but Steel was already descending the stairs. Sapphire, holding Helen’s hand, followed him down.

  Rob was still looking at the closed door of the room as Steel switched off the top landing light from below.

  Rob turned quickly and hurried down the stairs after the others.

  Chapter Five

  Sapphire had put some kind of a snack meal together for the two children. Helen was then put to bed. When Rob peeped into the spare room, an hour or so later, long after the clocks had all been rewound once more, he found his sister fast asleep.

  Sapphire was alone in the kitchen when Rob returned. The hob-lid of the stove was open and Sapphire was burning the nursery-rhyme book, dropping the pages, a few at a time, into the flames.

  It was as Rob closed the kitchen door behind him and was about to tell Sapphire that Helen was sound asleep, that he realised. He stopped and stared across the room.

  When Sapphire and Steel had arrived at the house earlier that evening, they carried not one bag or suitcase between them. Yet now, Sapphire was standing by the stove and she was dressed in a completely different outfit. Rob looked hard at her. Even her hair-style had changed. She looked, to Rob, like a woman he had once seen in an old nineteenth century picture.

  Sapphire looked around at him, noticed his stare, then realised.

  ‘Oh.’ She gave him the smile. ‘I suppose I’ve surprised you.’

  ‘Well...’ Rob began, still puzzled.

  ‘Only I fancied a change,’ said Sapphire, turning back to the stove. ‘Steel complains now and again,�
�� she added as she dropped more pages into the open hob of the stove.

  Rob moved slowly across the room; still staring at her.

  ‘He says I shouldn’t use Time as if it’s — well, as if it’s some kind of wardrobe.’ She broke the back cover of the book and dropped the pieces into the fire. ‘But he’s so serious and I get bored wearing the same...’

  ‘But where did you get them?’ Rob was still staring at her.

  ‘What?’ asked Sapphire innocently as she poked pieces of book down into the stove.

  ‘The clothes.’

  ‘Oh,’ she smiled. ‘They’re not real. These ones aren’t real.’

  ‘Not real?’

  ‘No.’ Sapphire set the poker down and dropped the last few pieces of book into the open hob. ‘Look.’

  Rob looked.

  ‘These were a favourite of mine last week.’

  Rob was still looking at Sapphire as her outfit changed yet again. This time it was a nineteen-forties style. Clothes, shoes, hair, make-up, everything.

  And Rob, although he could not understand, accepted it totally and without question. Whoever she was, whatever she was, he knew, deep inside himself somewhere, that he accepted Sapphire. He also knew, then, that this complete acceptance that could not be accounted for, would be with him for the rest of his life. Perhaps he could not trust her. He was not sure of this now but somehow it did not seem to matter. Whatever the cost to come, he accepted her and believed in her at that moment in time. And, as his mind and his soul and his body told him this, he found that he was looking into her eyes and beyond them. It was only a glimpse. A hint. It was as if those eyes were clear blue shutters that were capable of opening and showing him times and worlds that he had never seen and never would see.

  ‘So what do you think, Rob?’

  She turned, to show him the complete effect of the outfit and the moment passed.

  ‘I think it’s —’ Rob tried to put the right words together. ‘I just think that...’

  ‘What?’ asked Sapphire.

  ‘That — well, I just think that you’re beautiful.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Sapphire. She put the hob-lid back on the stove and the glow from the fire was shut in. So, too, were the images that Rob had seen in her face.