Omega

by Bradley Stoke

  Chapter 22

  “Characteristically fresh and invigorating!” exclaimed Hubert drawing in a deep breath of Country air, as we stood on a hill overlooking fields and moorland. “It’s only when I am in the Country I feel truly myself. I am sure that it was in contemplation of wide open countryside as this, with nothing but an expanse of blue sky above him, that the Great Poet drew his greatest inspiration.”

  Beta nodded in agreement. “It’s so beautiful here. Away from the City, its crowds and its pollution. Look at those daffodils over there. Simply hundreds of them! And those puppies playing around in them. Such innocence. Such joy. Don’t you think it’s wonderful?”

  She squeezed my hand, and I could only agree that the fields and meadows stretching out ahead of us presented a truly inspirational view. I breathed deep, taking in the scent of pollen blown from the wild grass, and carried in vaporous clouds over the larger tussocks, past a grazing antelope and onwards over the rolling hillocks as far as we could see.

  “The Great Poet wrote a great deal about the Country,” Hubert mused. “Again and again he returned to it, especially in his romantic period. For him the Country was always a thing of beauty, to be admired like a painting. He believed that art should aspire to capture that great beauty: something he tried and succeeded, in his odes, sonnets and vignettes. Ode To A Caterpillar. Reflections on the First Frog Spawn of Spring. The Scorpion on the Rose Petal. Fertility Carried in the Air. The Shepherd and his Sheep Dog. Works of Art which will be remembered long after the last turf of soil is embalmed in concrete and the last green field becomes a supermarket car park. But for now, let us just enjoy the beauty that is left. And curse the onward march of progress which threatens to eliminate such innocent beauty and to turn the air into an ozone-free, carbon dioxide rich and sulphurous poison.”

  The giant teddy bear bound surprisingly swiftly down the hillside, with Beta and me chasing after him, our hands clasped together. When we caught up with him, under the shade of an enormous tree, clasping his tri-cornered hat in one paw while patting his forehead with a silk handkerchief, I confessed that I had no great appreciation for the Great Poet while I was at school.

  “In fact, I’m afraid it all seemed rather irrelevant and somewhat boring.”

  “That is the great tragedy of our time,” mused Hubert reflectively. “There is no longer the inclination to reflect on the great insights of poetry. There are too many distractions from day-to-day things which appear more pressing and relevant, although there can be nothing in the world more deserving of our attention than a well-crafted phrase or a skilfully expressed trope.”

  “I really enjoyed poetry at school,” countered Beta, “and although the Great Poet wasn’t really my favourite, I could see that his poems were really very good.”

  “It’s the fault of state education!” grunted Hubert. “What else could it be? After so many years, the Great Poet’s oeuvre has lost its freshness for the children of the Suburbs, tempted away by motor cars, videos and fast food take-aways from the most profound insights ever yet attained by any one person. Perhaps, too, a familiarity of landscapes as beautiful as this engenders the reflection and contemplation required to enjoy the delicate and exquisite flower of great poetry.”

  “I’m sure that is so,” affirmed Beta. “I am much more inspired by poetry here in all this fresh air than I could ever be in the City.”

  We strolled through green open fields, past herds of deer and sheep to a long level hedge separating us from fields in which mammoths and glyptodonts were grazing. The hedge led to a wooden gate and stile, on which sat a collie chatting to a scorpion. They paused when they saw us, and greeted us politely.

  “Good morrow, my friends,” greeted Hubert amiably. “It’s a fine day, isn’t it?”

  “Indeed it is, sire,” agreed the collie unenthusiastically. “It is a day which best pleases my herd. The wind is light and the sun shines. No rain to chill their bones. But too much of this weather and my crops will surely suffer, and then I shall be cursing such days as this.”

  “Surely, it is best to simply enjoy good weather when one can,” Hubert remarked.

  “Aye, such advice is fine when weather is well tempered. My stock enjoys it and my vineyards too, even if my potatoes would like more rain. But such is my living, sire. The weather can never be wholly perfect.”

  “And now you are no doubt ruminating on the results of the General Election. How does the victory of the Red Party bode for you? Ill, I suspect, for a taxpayer such as you who has all the responsibility of man management.”

  The collie barked slightly. “On the contrary, sire. The Red Party victory was much welcomed by farmers throughout the Country. They had my vote and that of all my neighbours. It is only the very wealthiest farmers who had much to benefit from the Blue Party gaining power. For far too long the Country has been neglected, and only the Red Party, and perhaps the Green Party, has ever explicitly endorsed a policy to redress the balance between the City and the Country. The Blue Party talk about encouraging wealth creation, but it is for the benefit of yon City folk, not for them as have to till the land and furrow the soil. The Red Party has promised to direct government subsidies to farmers and manipulate the markets in the Country’s favour.”

  “I thought the Red Party represented the interests of only the poor and down-trodden,” Hubert argued. “How can that be true of you Country people, living here in the midst of such plenty, generated from the wealth of the soil?”

  “Beauty is all very well, sire. You gentlemen have such fanciful ideas of how good life is for us in the Country. And your fancies have brought us folk few favours, if you don’t mind me saying so. We might enjoy living in the Country, and this is where we have chosen to live, but we want practical help. Our produce is made and sold at Country prices, not City prices. Not the prices you City folk are used to. Us folk, we talk in farthings, pennies and shillings. City folk talk in hundreds and thousands of guineas, but pay us for our produce only as little as they can. The Red Party promise to reward us better for our labours and to even the score more in Country folk’s favour.”

  “What the Red Party promises and what the Red Government delivers are two different things. Surely, you will be just as neglected by the Red Government as you have been by the Coition Government before it.”

  “That I can’t say, sire. The Red Party has been in power not yet two days. But already they have sent representatives to our homes to explain how the new system of government subsidies and investment will work, and how it will be paid for by the higher prices charged for our labours. I fancy, sire, the Blue Party or the White Party would not be so forthcoming on our behalf. The Country has been exploited for many years by the City, the Suburbs and the financial institutions: taking from us, loading us with debts we can never repay, offering us advice which ruin our crops and squander our resources for short-term gain, and telling us that we should learn from them and disregard hundreds of years of practical experience. The Red Party, however, have sensible and practical ideas which they seem committed to put into practise.”

  “I must say,” Hubert remarked, apparently dumbfounded, “I had never thought to see the day when the anarchists, communists and socialists would rule the Country with the apparent consent of the farmers.”

  “Anarchists? Communists? I don’t hold to them at all, sire. But that isn’t what us Country folk find attractive about the Red Party. It really matters not what turn of cloth these Red Party folk affect to wear. What matters is that they provide us with stable markets for our produce, an incentive to farm and sell, and don’t treat us like Country bumpkins with no nonce nor sensitivity. Political ideology is not what concerns us Country folk. Ultimately what we want is results, and if the Red Government provide these, then we shall be satisfied.”

  As we resumed our way across the fields, Hubert mused on the collie’s remarks. “Such lamentable disregard for ideology and policy! Do these Country people not see that the interests of th
e traditional proletariat constituency of the Red Party and those of the peasant will inevitably clash?”

  “But aren’t the people who work in the Country much the same as those in the City,” argued Beta. “They all want a good living for the work they do. Aren’t you just confusing workers with the work they do?”

  “One is defined by one’s employ,” remarked Hubert. “But here we are in the midst of beauty. Look at all these green fields. That one being ploughed by that robotic tractor over there, for instance. And, goodness me, what does that large Formica sign say?”

  He pointed over a meadow where deer were frolicking with rabbits and skunks to an imposing sign reading: Sold To The Lambdeth & Houndswich Mutual Assurance Society. Behind it was a field that had been left to neglect: wild grasses and thistles crowded inside, more than waist high and blowing about in the faint breeze. A rusting hulk of a tractor and savage guard dogs were surrounded by many acres jealously guarded by barbed wire and thorn bushes.

  Hubert waved his massive arm. “That collie was wrong to say that the City and its financial institutions take no interest in the Country. Here, if proof were needed, is evidence of the investment and resources ploughed back into the Country. It is not all one-way traffic.”

  The meadow extended until it reached a line of deciduous trees, weeping willows and bull-rushes on the banks of a gently running river where water rats, otters and frogs played in the water and a family of swans glid by in stately procession. The bank was too steep for us to approach the water closely, although Beta wanted to wash the mud off her feet. A sign warned us that fishing was strictly prohibited, but this didn’t trouble some beavers sitting on the bank who were dangling their fishing rods in the flowing current.

  “Ah, we’re approaching the lake where my journey ends,” Hubert remarked. “The latter years of the Great Poet’s life were spent there in a very pleasant cottage, now a museum managed by the Great Poet Trust of which I am proud to claim membership. He spent many pleasant hours by the shores of the lake, and of this river too, I am sure, inspired by the patience and skill of the kingfisher, the elegance of the striding heron and the occasional sight of the plesiosaur that lives there. It was there he consolidated his numerological theories of nature, humour and history. A theory famously illustrated in his series of Lake Sonnets, twenty-two in all, which encapsulate the delicate balance of nature, art and culture. I’m not so sure he would be so enthusiastic about many of the wares now sold in his last refuge which purport to his legacy.”

  “What are they?” I wondered.

  “Pottery mugs embellished with his face. Tee-shirts enriched by his poetry. Fluffy toys. Rich chocolates. Soft drinks. Sticks of rock. There is no limit to the merchandise sold supposedly celebrating his poetic greatness. There are even plans afoot to construct a Great Poet theme park, and I have read bowdlerised ‘popular’ editions of his more accessible works. There may even be a television cartoon series based on his epic poem Spectacles Lost. There can be no limit as to how his legacy can be debased in the pursuit of an ill-gained farthing.”

  The river meandered about, occasionally bowing around and almost cutting itself off, and gradually getting wider. And then, around one of its many bends, the river rapidly emptied into a lake many leagues across and ringed by small hills. There was a village at one end of the lake, by which bobbed several small boats. The buildings were all very modest, bar a large white hotel decorated by prominent letters raised above its roof which even from this distance quite distinctly read The Great Poet Hotel. A boat sailed across the still waters embellished by the words: The Great Poet Tours Ltd. The sun’s reflection shimmered in the middle of the lake occasionally shattered by the leaping of trout and the splash of low gliding pterosaurs. A well-worn path led towards the small town prominently signposted The Great Poet’s Cottage, while another path in the other direction led to The Suburbs, amongst other places.

  “So, this is where we part,” commented Hubert. “I wish you well on your quest, but I hope that this Rupert does not mislead you when he says that the Suburbs is where you will find the Truth. I really do not trust this Rupert or any of his followers. They do not seem a gentlemanly breed to me. But here at least there is little evidence of his unmannerly supporters.”

  The giant teddy bear lumbered off towards the small town, while Beta and I followed the lake in the other direction. It was a warm afternoon, the air brushed pleasantly against our faces and water lapped lazily against the shore just by the path. Dragon-flies buzzed about in the rushes. Trout and pike swam lissomely by, close to the surface and unworried by the swooping pterosaurs. Deer, dogs, badgers and even a diplodocus stood on the shore and sipped the cool clean water. The path was dusty and dry, and we were wary of treading on the scorpions and thistles that flourished in the aridity.

  “It’s so hot!” exclaimed Beta, and then without pausing, as she had no clothes to remove, she strode into the lake until it was up to her waist and propelled herself into the water with some forceful breast-strokes. She swam nearly a furlong out, turned round and shouted. “Come on in! It’s lovely in here. It’s really not that cold.”

  I nodded, and shyly shed my clothes, after confirming that I was being watched by no one, of any species, cautiously laid them where I could see them from a distance and walked out slowly into the water. It seemed very cold to me, but when the water was deep enough I ignored my shivers, crouched down and swam out to catch up with Beta. We hovered around each other looking at the hills and the Great Poet Hotel.

  “It’s lovely here, isn’t it?” Beta exclaimed. “This is where I want to live. In the Country. Surrounded by beauty and fresh air. As far as possible from the traffic, the noise and the chaos of the City. What could possibly be better?”

  Without waiting for my response, she kissed me on the lips, chuckled and dived into the water, her long wet hair trailing behind as she slid in, and splaying over her shoulders when she surfaced a yard or so ahead.

  “They say the Country is poor. But they must be wrong. However many trillions of guineas people may have in the City, it is they who are poor to be deprived of all this beauty, and we in the Country who are truly rich. What price can be attached to nature at its very best?”

  Not far from where we were swimming was a picturesque open-air café on the water’s edge served by a gruff looking bear, offering a limited but appetising selection of hot food at prices we had no difficulty in affording. For only a few groat we had a meal of ploughman’s lunch and pastie, seated on an unsteady wooden chair in the café garden in front of an enormous bench, with the accompaniment of warm beer, gnats, dragon flies and the occasional bee. We faced towards the lake, the sun high above the water, as ducks flew overhead and a rowing boat struggled by.

  Beta leaned over to kiss me. “Oh! It’s so beautiful! Surely the Truth is here rather than in the Suburbs. Why don’t we simply abandon our search and settle here?”

  Beta was persuasive, but I was disinclined to abandon my quest after having come so far and now being so near where our goal promised to be. I was about to reply when the atmosphere, previously so peaceful and becalmed, was disturbed by four young people in the utilitarian outfits that Una had called Rupert suits. Two were Jack Russell Terriers with green berets sporting a badge depicting Rupert’s face, one was an enormous scorpion with a sleeve for each of his four arms, and a trouser leg for each of his remaining four limbs, and a young female spaniel who had decorated her beret with a long pheasant’s feather. They sat around a bench nearby, and shouted their orders to the bear.

  The spaniel noticed us watching them with trepidation, our food eaten and our beers half-finished. She greeted us amiably: “Are you also off to seek the Truth, comrades?” Beta nodded silently. The spaniel’s three companions ignored her as she ambled towards us on her hind legs, more intent on their own involved and raucous conversation. “We’re going to the Suburbs, too. It seems everyone is. And not just Illiberal Socialists! People from all over are congreg
ating there. Thousands of people are going there. By foot, car, train or aeroplane. It’s so exciting!”

  “It’s odd that so many people are going to the Suburbs,” I remarked. “It’s not usually a place where people want to go.”

  “It takes the great wisdom and insight of the President Chairman to recognise that it is exactly where to find the Truth. Only he could have identified its true location. And only he could have inspired so many to trek there, so soon after the excitement of the General Election. The Red Government are broadcasting propaganda telling people not to follow this great quest. They say that there are already too many people converging on the Suburbs, and that it is ill-equipped to cope with it. This proves the malevolence and incorrectness of Red Party ideology. They wish to deny everyone the opportunity of collaborating in the quest for the Truth: the one most ardently and assiduously pursued in all history. Are you members of the Illicit Party?”

  Beta shook her head. “It’s not very popular where I come from.”

  “That’s a great shame. The Illicit cause has many barriers and obstacles to overcome in its relentless march to power. The vile and false propaganda of our enemies in the Red, Blue, White, Black and Green Parties has misled many who would surely all follow the cause if they were better informed, as are those of us in our woodland borough of Rupert. My sincere hope is that the pursuit of the Truth will converts many more to Illiberal Socialism. So many have followed the great marsupial and seek the Truth in his wake.”

  She glanced back at her companions who were staring at her and us silently with what might be either friendly curiosity or hushed enmity. Beta looked rather nervous as she hastily drank her beer and stood up. “Well, it’s been nice talking to you, but we must be on our way!”

  “Yes. Refreshment first. And then on with the struggle!” the spaniel said approvingly.

  She scampered back to her friends whose questioning of her didn’t appear at all amiable, as we strode briskly out through the café gate and back onto the track. A crossroads pointed the way to innumerable destinations: Honeysuckle Wood, Cowslip Meadow, Dandelion Green, and, less rustically the Suburbs. This route led away from the lake through bracken and heather, over a ridge between two hills. We looked behind at the café where many others wearing Rupert suits were arriving and transforming the peaceful ambience of the lake with their greetings and shouts. As we climbed, we could hear them singing to the accompaniment of marshal music blasting forth from portable sound systems.

  “I thought we’d have got away from the Illicit Party in the Country!” Beta exclaimed. “But here they are! Surely they’re not all going to the Suburbs.”

  It seemed that they were, because when we ascended the brow of the ridge and looked over we were astonished to see a caravanserai of banners and flags being borne by countless people in Rupert suits marching along the meadow grass and bracken. They formed a long procession straggling on endlessly through the valley towards the distant roofs and church steeples of the Suburbs ahead. Even from this distance, we could hear the odd snatches of political chants and singing. All species were represented: sheep, dogs, ostriches, titanotheres, gremlins and hippopotami. We stood on the ridge, uncertain whether to continue or turn back.

  “I don’t want to meet up with all those people!” Beta exclaimed. “What happens if they get violent like they did in the City yesterday and in that town this morning? I wouldn’t like to get mixed up in that!”

  “What shall we do? We can’t go back because there are more of them in the café, and they’ll soon be coming out and heading in this direction. And if we go forward we can’t avoid the procession.”

  “We’ll go through the woods over there,” Beta decided, pointing at the woodland that ran along one side of the valley. “It’s a diversion, but at least it’s in the right direction.”

  We skirted up the valley side towards a stile that entered into the wood, marked by a painted yellow arrow for the benefit of country ramblers. The heather and gorse gave way to long grass which brushed against our knees. Meadow flowers, like cow parsley and nettles, were being grazed by the occasional elk or aurochs. We clambered over the stile and onto a well-worn path fringed by dry rotting undergrowth. It was much cooler in the woods as the sunlight allowed through the gaps in the foliage amassed in only small patches on the forest floor. Bluebells and daffodils gathered in huge bunches where there was enough sun for them to flourish. A couple of dogs wearing berets had forgotten their ideological pursuits and indulged together in more carnal ones in a small clearing, their Rupert suits discarded haphazardly about them. Beta averted her eyes and nervously grasped my hand.

  “I hope we won’t come across too many more Illicitists,” she remarked.

  Fortunately, we did not. The woodland life was unconcerned with any quest. Deer huddled in the darkest shadows of the wood, staring at us guardedly and nervously. Squirrels, both red and grey, were running up and down the tall tree trunks. A pine marten rested high above our heads while a gaggle of monkeys swung through the very highest branches where the occasional owl perched imperiously on guard.

  We soon forgot the threat of the Illicit Party and chatted idly about the things we had seen together and our expectations of the Suburbs. Beta had a remarkable sixth sense which enabled her to tread surely along the uneven path, never scratching her feet on the dry branches and twigs scattered on the path, avoiding the small mounds of faeces and the patches of nettles that had encroached onto the path. She sometimes wandered off into the wood to bury her nose in bluebells. As we walked, the trees changed in character as did the soil in which they grew. Their roots sometimes spread out over the path and gained anchorage on the most precipitous slopes.

  We became aware of squawking and cawing from behind. I turned my head to see a flock of crows and rooks burst out from the highest trees and fly overhead. A stag and several hinds thundered by, followed by fauns, rabbits and skunks. An owl flew very close above our heads, the stroke of its wings brushing us with a breeze unusual in the stillness of the forest air. I glanced at Beta for an explanation for this sudden rush of activity, but her eyes were closed, her head raised and her nostrils sniffing the air. I sniffed too but could smell nothing more than the usual rich mixture of arboreal odours.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. It’s not normal, whatever it is! You don’t suppose it’s something to do with the Illicit Party do you?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t say. But why were you sniffing like that? Could you smell something?”

  “Well, yes,” admitted Beta frowning. “Something like burning. You know, that smell you get on a log fire before it properly catches.” She sniffed again. “Yes. There it is again. Stronger now. Can you smell anything?”

  “Something. I don’t know whether it’s burning. Is there a fire or something? Perhaps we’re near an encampment. They might be having a barbecue.”

  “That’s possible,” agreed Beta, walking on but still quite troubled. Squirrels dashed between our feet, and there was the loud crashing of tapirs running by in the foliage. Beta shouted at one of the tapirs: “What’s going on?”

  “Fire!” shouted the tapir, pausing momentarily. “There’s a forest fire!”

  He picked up a gallop and disappeared.

  Beta looked at me with visible alarm. “We’d better run!”

  I agreed, and we raced through the woods, away from our still unseen enemy. It wasn’t to remain invisible for long, as we came to the top of a ridge and could see the tops of trees burning red and yellow less than a mile behind us, crackling and disintegrating in flames which were leaping up from the lower branches. There was a sudden crash as one of the trees fell down in flames setting alight trees further ahead of it. The dry bracken, twigs and leaves must have been helping the fire in its progress. Beta and I hurried on, occasionally turning our heads around, to see whether the fire had caught up with us. Beta leapt over branches and skirted around hummocks with an agility and skill I di
dn’t possess. I kept slipping over and banging my shins against the forest obstacles.

  I had no idea where Beta was leading us, but she seemed to know best which way to take, as she took forks in paths and cut across stretches of woodland which followed the same general orientation of all the other animals. Her sense of direction had not failed her, as we soon approached the glimmerings of light in a patch of wood through which we emerged from the arboreal shadow to the unbroken blue of sky in a meadow along a valley similar to where we’d been earlier. Beta didn’t stop running even in the open, and, gasping, I followed her example, leaping over the gorse and heather, until we were more than a furlong from the forest edge. She then abruptly stopped, and, panting and coughing, I was grateful to do the same thing.

  We sat on a large granite boulder surrounded by short moorland grass, and looked back at the wood. Forest life was emerging, blinking and coughing and panting in the perceived safety. Deer, wolves, boar, pheasants, all gathering in ragged groups and anxiously staring at the destruction of their homes and fearing for their families. From the forest came the aura of flames, the roar of forestry engulfed in fire and the crackle of burning leaves. A strong carbon smell wafted past us.

  Not all observers were distressed. A crowd of individuals in Rupert suits were laughing and joking around a solitary tree. Some were actually throwing stones at animals who were struggling to emerge from the forest, forcing them back inside.

  Beta glared at them malevolently. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they’d started the fire,” she remarked.

  A family of ground sloths blundered free of the forest, and, ignoring the stones (as well they could), ran towards the Illicit Party supporters who dispersed laughing and jeering. A bear with severe burns on her fur was carrying a small cub in her paws. She lay it down on the ground, and growled viciously at the inquisitive stares of some roe deer and civets who were gathering around.

  “We best continue on our way,” Beta remarked. “There are probably more of those Illicit dogs somewhere. They really don’t seem at all nice.”

  Still fatigued by my running, but not disputing Beta’s wisdom, I followed her to clamber over the moorland, following a general diaspora of forest animals such as muntjacs, wolves, badgers, rooks and even rhinoceri.