Empty World

by John Christopher

  He led the way back to the smaller living room. There was a wooden box in one corner, something like an Armada chest, secured with an iron clasp and a heavy lock. Clive produced a key, unlocked it and lifted the lid.

  “What do you think of this little lot?”

  It was like something out of a corny pirate film. The chest was heaped with jewels: necklaces, armbands, tiaras, brooches, with all kinds of precious stones in elaborate gold settings. A snowy heap in one corner must have comprised a dozen strings of pearls at least. Clive picked up a black cloth bag and undid a string at the top. He held it open for Neil to look in. There were at least a hundred rings there, each with one or more big diamonds.

  Comment was clearly required. Neil said:

  “You brought the family jewels with you, then?”

  Clive gave him a quick look; then nodded.

  “That’s right.” He retied the bag and put it away carefully. “You bring any?”

  “Only a ring of my mother’s.”

  “Can I see it?”

  Neil fished out the opal ring from his anorak pocket, and Clive looked at it.

  “Pretty,” he said condescendingly as he handed it back. He shut and locked his chest, and stowed away the key.

  • • •

  The charitable explanation was that he was mad; though whether he had been like that originally or recent events had unhinged him there was no way of knowing. His present life, certainly, owed more to fantasy than reality. The trace of cockney accent, increasingly noticeable as time passed, did not fit with being Viscount D’Arcy. For that matter, could there have been an Earl of Blenheim? It had been the name of a house, surely—the Duke of Marlborough’s?

  All the things here, like the caravan itself and the Rolls, were items he had acquired, jackdaw-like, in his travels. Neil had been surprised that he showed such slight interest in other survivors, and shocked that he had left a four-year-old to fend for himself. But he realized that as far as Clive was concerned other people scarcely existed. His own role was merely to be shown the treasures—to serve as a mirror for greed and vanity.

  That being so, there was no point, even if they were the only two people left, in attempting to extend the acquaintanceship. The slight distaste which he had felt for Clive from the start hardened into antipathy. The sooner they separated and he went his own way, the better. And the fact that there might be others still alive added weight to that.

  Clive, he reckoned, ought to be equally glad to see him go. He had performed the function required; and with the appetite for display satisfied, other considerations were likely to come to the fore. He doubted if Clive could be at ease with a stranger in such close proximity to his possessions. His mania for locking things up was testimony to that.

  But, again to his surprise, Clive demurred when he thanked him for the coffee and talked of moving on. He put a hand on Neil’s arm, and said warmly:

  “You can’t go just yet. I want you to stay and have supper with me. I’ve got a tin of pheasant in Burgundy sauce. And a château-bottled claret to go with it.”

  Neil had conflicting impulses, the main one being to insist on leaving. On the other hand, this was the first human being he had seen in what seemed like an age. And though mad, he appeared harmless. It was even possible that having someone to talk to might start him back on the road to sanity. He nodded.

  “All right. Thanks.”

  • • •

  There were moments during the remainder of the day when Neil thought his guess about Clive’s mental state, and the possibility of it improving, had been right. A lot of what he said was obvious ­nonsense—he talked of hunt balls, riding to hounds, holidays in the West Indies and Africa and the United States, even of going to dinner with the Queen—but there were saner passages.

  One came after he had asked Neil about his family—had he had brothers and sisters? Neil said yes, and gave their names when asked, but said nothing of their being killed before the Plague started. Clive said:

  “I had three sisters. They were older than me. Jenny, Caroline and Paula. Jenny was a secretary, in a bank.” He paused. “She was going to leave this summer, to get married.”

  Not Lady Jenny, Lady Caroline, Lady Paula, Neil noticed. And although it was not impossible for an Earl’s eldest daughter to be a secretary in a bank, he would have expected Clive to invent some more elevated occupation for her. This was genuine.

  He asked about them, and Clive talked at some length. Neil got the impression of a little brother indulged, spoiled in fact, by three adoring elder sisters. The parents were shadowy creatures, who seemed to have had much less importance in his life. He said:

  “It got Caroline first, then Paula. I thought maybe it had missed Jenny. Then I watched it happen to her.” There was a tremor in his voice. “I saw it all, from beginning to end.”

  He stopped abruptly, and Neil saw the dark eyes glisten. He said:

  “It’s over now.”

  He realized the inadequacy of that, but could think of nothing else to say. Clive did not speak for a moment or two; then said with exaggerated cheerfulness:

  “Say, I knew there was something else I had to show you!”

  He brought it from a shelf: an old book, calf-bound, with silver corners and a silver clasp.

  “Look at this!”

  Neil was getting bored with that cry of triumph. Clive undid the clasp and opened up the book. The pages were of yellowed parchment, lettered and coloured by hand. The text was in Latin, the script not easy to make out, but Neil realized it was religious, perhaps a bible.

  “I don’t go for books much,” Clive said, “but this one’s got some great pictures.”

  He turned the pages and displayed a picture of an odd-looking ship, with even odder animals staring in pairs across the high gunnels: giraffes, elephants, lions, a couple of woolly sheep. Sea and sky were different blues, both sharp and bright, and the sun was a disk of real gold leaf.

  “Noah’s Ark,” Clive said. “I like that. I really do.”

  • • •

  That evening, while they ate together, the talk was wild again. He had not only gone to dinner with the Queen, but stayed with her as a house-guest. It wasn’t easy to work out if this had been at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle or Balmoral—perhaps all three. He spoke of the Royal Family as though they were old friends.

  “I’ve been thinking about the Crown Jewels,” he said. “Maybe I ought to go to the Tower and get them. For safe keeping. Her Majesty would have wanted me to do that.”

  At least the food was good. With the pheasant he served potatoes, asparagus and peas, and afterwards produced a tin containing a rich fruit cake. They drank the wine out of silver goblets. It had a slightly sour taste which Neil did not care much for, and he refused a refill, but Clive drank a good deal. One of the best wines from his father’s cellar, he proclaimed, ignoring the fragment of label which had carried the wine merchant’s price tag. They finished off with coffee—the Blue Mountain this time—and Clive told a rambling tale about his father taking the family to Switzerland: they had occupied the entire top floor of the biggest hotel, and he and his father had climbed the Matterhorn.

  It was dusk and Clive got up to switch on the lights. He had become so amiable that Neil was anticipating being asked to stay on, and trying to find a good reason for refusing. He did not fancy spending the night here. But Clive said:

  “We’d better look you out a place to sleep. I’ll lend a hand.”

  Relieved, Neil said: “That’s all right. I’ll find somewhere.”

  Clive insisted, though, on accompanying him. They found a bedroom in a large Victorian house behind the row of shops. A comfortable bed, Clive pointed out, bouncing on it, and with a bathroom next door.

  “But you can come over to the caravan and shower in the morning,” he added. “And breakfast with me.
I’ve got some American bacon and I can make an omelette from powdered egg. Mushroom omelette—you like that?”

  It was a relief to see him depart; Neil decided that in the morning he would definitely go his own way. He hung up his anorak, pausing to listen to a cry he recognized as that of a fox. There was no distinction between town and country now that men had gone. He was full from the meal, and tired. It did not take him long to drop off.

  • • •

  He awoke in the night with the impression of having heard a movement close by. He remembered he was no longer alone in the world, and called out: “Clive?” There was no answer, but his nerves remained taut. Mad, he had thought, but harmless—but could he be certain of that?

  There was moonlight outside; sufficient for him to be sure there was no-one in the room. The door, though, was opened wider than it had been. A gust of wind, perhaps, but the night was still. He got out of bed, closed the door, and tugged a chest-of-drawers across to block it. As he did so he heard a sound again, outside and going away. An animal, he guessed.

  He went back to bed and after a time slept soundly: it was bright day when he awoke again. He did not bother washing—the thought of the shower was tempting even if Clive’s company was not—but threw on his clothes and left the house.

  It was only about fifty yards to the main street, and he could see the Jaguar before he got there. The sleek shape hugged the road. It looked lower somehow. He came to the road junction and stared in disbelief. There was a reason for it looking lower: the tyres were flat.

  Neil walked, frowning, towards the car. The tyres had been slashed savagely. He looked inside. The upholstery had been slashed as well, and the leather hung in strips.

  It made no sense. Clive? It could scarcely be anyone else. He began to get angry. Mad or not, this was something to answer for. He found his fists clenching as he walked round the bend in the road to where the caravan was parked. The pedestrian crossing was there; but the two vehicles which had been immediately beyond it were gone.

  The sounds in the night. . . . He was certain now that it had been Clive, but could not think why. Presumably he had been carrying a knife, since he had slashed the tyres and upholstery. Had he been planning to stick it into him, too? Neil shook his head, pushing his hands deep into his anorak pockets. He still could not envisage him as a murderer.

  Gradually, as he brooded on it, he became aware of something—or aware, rather, of something missing. His right hand should be feeling the small round hardness of his mother’s ring, but there was nothing there. It had been in the pocket when he hung up the anorak the night before. He had touched it before he went to bed, as he always did.

  Neil understood at last. It explained the determination to have him stay, and the solicitude in helping him find a place for the night. A place Clive knew, and into which he could creep while Neil slept. He must have been slipping out again when Neil called, but not before he had got what he came for.

  But why? What did he want with an ordinary ring when he had a chest stuffed with jewels? But even as he framed the question, Neil realized how pointless it was. You might as well ask why a jackdaw stole.

  He was still angry, but he pitied him as well. To be driven by that sick frantic greed, and to live in a world where, with almost infinite possibilities for indulging it, it could never be satisfied. It was miserable, really.

  Neil turned and walked back slowly towards the Jaguar. He stared at the ripped seats. Not so miserable that he wouldn’t cheerfully boot him, if he ever got the chance.

  7

  NEIL MOVED SEVERAL TIMES DURING his first week in London, before settling into a big house facing Hyde Park, not far from Wellington Barracks. He learned from papers in a desk that it had been the home of a foreign diplomat. It was very luxurious, with heavy brocade curtains and thick pile carpeting. The furnishings were to match, and he recognized some of the oil paintings on the walls as the work of famous artists.

  The luxury was not his main reason for choosing it as a permanency. More important was the park in front, which meant he had a wide landscape rather than a narrow street to scan hopefully for an approaching figure; and the fact that the Serpentine was one of the nearer features of the landscape. Water ran from the taps still, but he felt happier with a broad expanse of fresh water within sight and reach.

  Additionally the house was strategically placed, halfway between Knightsbridge and Kensington High Street, for access to shops; and shops that had served a markedly affluent population. The supplies were just about inexhaustible. And these considerations, he thought, were likely to attract other survivors, if they had not already done so.

  His hopes for that varied. Immediately after the encounter with Clive he had felt optimistic. The world was empty no longer: there was a prospect of finding someone around every next corner. Even while he was searching for a replacement for the Jaguar he felt there was a chance of it happening. Now and then he stopped to halloo, and once half-fancied he heard a call in reply. He stopped and listened, and shouted and listened again, but only silence answered him.

  Optimism remained as he continued the journey into London, in a blue Cortina. (There wasn’t much in the tank, but he was in an almost continuously built-up area now, with abandoned cars on every side.) Wherever the road offered anything of a vantage point, he stopped the car and scanned the horizon. Once he saw a plume of smoke rising in the distance, and set out to track it down. It involved a long detour, and he lost his way and had to re-locate the smoke from the upper room of a house, but he found it in the end. A whole row of houses had burned down, and the plume rose from a still smouldering section in the middle.

  The sort of fire which had sent Rye up like a torch was unlikely here, of course. This was late twentieth, not seventeenth century London, its buildings more widely separated and built not of wood but brick and concrete and steel. Fires were self-limiting. In some places the area of devastation was quite large, but in general the city looked untouched.

  And the stillness, the absence of movement, gave him a new understanding of the vastness of the place. As street succeeded empty street, Neil could not believe that he would not find someone soon. He stopped at Bromley to search more thoroughly and spent the night there. He made prolonged searches again in Clapham and Brixton. He drove for long periods with his thumb on the horn button, halting now and then with it still blaring to give anyone who heard it a chance to reach him.

  Despondency, when it finally set in, was deeper than before. He reminded himself that nothing Clive had told him could be relied on. If the Earl of Blenheim had been a figment of imagination, might not the survivors he had spoken of be equally so? He knew one other person had lived through the Plague, but that did not mean two had. He and mad Clive might well be the total remaining population of Britain.

  He came across indications, too, which suggested that, as far as the recent past was concerned, he had been quite wrong in his view of London as likely to attract people. It was not the fires, though they might well have driven people away; there were signs that the rat menace here had been appalling. Plenty were still about, by day as well as night, and at the height of their population expansion they must have become a brown tide of devastation. Everywhere heaps of bones lay bleaching in the streets. There were skeletons looking like those of cats or dogs, and once what had probably been a horse. Twice he found human skeletons; there was no way of telling whether they had succumbed to the Plague, or rats had pulled them down.

  By the time he got to Princes Gate he had given up the idea of actively looking for others, and decided to stay put. He felt something like he had done as a child in Hampton Court maze, except that this maze was a million times more vast. He and the others, if there were any others, could be boxing and coxing in a hopelessly self-defeating fashion: the very morning he was away searching might be the morning someone came through here. He remembered a saying of his grandfather: tha
t if you took up a position at Piccadilly Circus, sooner or later you would meet everyone you knew. He had thought it absurd, but saw the force of the argument now.

  He did make one expedition, though. Increasingly, as the days went by, his thoughts of Clive became less hostile. Mad or not, he was a human being. Even fantasies and kleptomania might be preferable to being alone. He thought of his remark about the Crown Jewels, and set off for the Tower of London.

  The thing that amazed him was that the ravens were still there, strutting on the green beside the White Tower. But no Beefeaters, no milling crowds of tourists, no guides lecturing on the dramas of the past. These buildings which had known the tread of feet for over a thousand years did so no more. The only traces of humanity were the initials carved on the walls, and the rows of empty armour in the museum.

  The heavy door leading to the Wakefield Tower was closed, and would not yield when he tried to open it. Locked, he supposed, before the end came—the last of the Beefeaters performing a final duty. It had been a fruitless errand. There was no way of knowing whether or not Clive had come here. And what difference would it have made, if he had? He would have taken his baubles and gone his way.

  Neil went up on the battlements and looked across the river. Tower Bridge was lowered, and there was no tall ship demanding passage. The tide lapped aimlessly against the pillars. Further up in the Pool he could see the masts of ships, but as deserted and decaying as the silent roofs all round. He thought of the old days, and the constant busy traffic: barges, tugs, river boats, police launches. A few seagulls soared and swooped, with hoarse mewing cries. Not many, though. There was no never-­failing supply of human refuse to support the vast army of scavengers of yore.

  Gazing at the river, the focus of trade since before the Romans came, Neil had the shattering realization that what had happened had happened not just here but all over the world. He had been thinking of himself as lost and alone in the vastness of England; but it was not just one small island, it really was the whole planet. The thought was unbearable: he turned and quickly went away.