Adeline was standing on her own outside the bar, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and carrying a mask on a stick. She wore a puffed-up, pale-blue skirt with a blue and white bodice. Her face was powdered and her lips rouged, a prominent beauty spot high on her left cheek. A solitary seventeenth century figurine, standing on a twenty-first century street corner, and she didn’t look at all out of place. How could anyone look out of place here? It wasn’t possible, the usual rules did not apply.
Her face was not the way he remembered. With all the make-up, it was mask perfect, between oval and heart shaped. Her straight nose and buoyant cheeks were blessed by those green eyes, which were glowing with all the hyperactivity going on inside her head.
She smiled when she recognised Leonard, she curtseyed but her heart wasn’t in it, she seemed concerned.
‘Good evening and how are you, Mademoiselle?’
‘Sober, and I’m waiting for the birthday boy who is sure to be hammered.’
‘You look good enough to eat.’
‘I know, and you look like an idiot!’
‘Oh, I do love your honesty.’
She grabbed his arm, and led him in. The heads turned, the Romans, Egyptians, Aliens, Frankensteins, Draculas, Fairies, Nurses, Pilots, Werewolves, Zorros and Pirates. They all gave Leonard a glance, just to see who Tony would have it in for, later on.
Adeline ladled punch into a glass and Leonard started to knock it back. The music got louder and the first ‘don’t care if we look like fools’, started dancing.
Adeline looked around at how things were going and weighed it all up very quickly. She placed her arms on her hips and tried to straighten her back.
‘It’s the corset; it’s choking my insides. I’m going upstairs for a few minutes. Do you want to come?’
She walked along the hallway and Leonard followed. The hoops in her skirt were bending around people and furniture, then she seemed to be gliding like a small hovercraft up the stairs. Leonard followed on self-consciously behind. He knew that everyone in the room kept an eye on who climbed the stairs. He knew that more than one witness would be timing their disappearance, breaking the news of it in a whisper to Tony later on.
Leonard had a friend at junior school who lived above a pub, above The Bell in Markhouse Avenue, Peter something. He remembered how big the rooms were. These rooms above Tony’s tavern were the same, huge and square with high ceilings and big windows. Deep pile carpets, extra fridges and chest freezers, oddly positioned in hallways and living rooms, to carry the overflow from the bar.
Adeline was sitting on the arm of a wingback sofa in front of a switched-off, wide-screen television. Leonard felt awkward, way too close to the heart of someone else’s life, way too soon. Tony’s things were all around: Sunday football trophies and framed photographs, books about commandoes and special service escapades, masculine ornaments, horse brasses and a rack of polished cedar-wood pipes. Leonard had been told about Adeline, he was forewarned and therefore forearmed, it should have put him off. But that never happens, does it?
She turned to Leonard and wrapped her arms around his waist. She started to undo his belt, her hands moving slowly but surely.
‘Hang on, what about getting to know one another first?’
‘Haven’t you noticed that the world is about to end? There’s no time and no point in building a lasting relationship.’
‘But I…’
‘Ssh, Leonard, that’s coming along nicely. Shall we investigate?’
‘I’d like that but…’
‘But what? Let’s get on with it!’
‘To be quite honest, Adeline, no, I don’t think so. I mean I don’t think we should… It’s quite lovely what you’re doing, by the way.’
‘You say no but your cock says yes. Look at it!’
‘Yeah? But what does my cock know, eh? He has a simple soul.’
She redoubled her efforts.
‘Well, it obviously knows better than you, Leonard!’
He stepped back and she let go. Leonard’s pulse was making his extension twitch and she laughed at that. He regretted it when she stood up and made her way to the door.
‘What are you afraid of, Leonard?’
‘Same as always: getting caught in the act, caught with my trousers down, doing something I shouldn’t be doing, a very long way from home. I’m here to save my skin and that’s all.’
‘You’re an idiot, Leonard! Don’t tell me you actually believe you stand a chance of being selected for survival? Selection is a farce. Warden is the biggest phoney of them all. He gambles, fucks around, hoovers up the class A drugs.’
‘Well, then what’s he doing in charge of the passenger list?’
‘He’s not in charge, he’s just like some kind of middle-man. He’s just admin’, he doesn’t decide anything.’
‘Well, who does then?’
‘The project has a whole committee of managers, there’s always two or three of them in the public gallery, and even they have to report to a selection board.’
‘Jesus, I was way off.’
‘Looks that way.’
‘But what about Tony? I’ve been told he’s the murderous, jealous type.’
‘Look, Leonard, who can afford to be jealous? We’re living out the last few weeks of the history of the world.’
‘Yes, but as you have noted, I am trying to play my cards right against lengthening odds. I’m trying not to die sooner or even later. I want to get onto the vessel and have a chance at survival.’
‘Don’t we all, but let’s face it, the odds aren’t good and the system is corrupt. There are ways, I’m sure, more circuitous routes, alternative passenger lists. There’s bound to be plenty of bribery going on, but I don’t imagine you have the goods necessary to negotiate that kind of a deal!’
Leonard felt he’d been exposed as a naïve fool, a greenhorn.
‘I need a drink.’
Adeline turned and headed back towards the party. Leonard sat down on the sofa and switched on the television. He began to flick through the channels with the sound down. There were shots of mass refugee movements, unchecked rioting and clever men standing before computer generations of the solar system.
Leonard turned the sound up until he could hear the expert commentator say:
‘It is not easy for any of us to forget that we are living in a state of international emergency. Of martial law. This spring an asteroid of huge density will collide with the earth. The disruption will be unprecedented and all-pervading. Anybody who cannot find effective shelter from shock waves, earthquakes and the subsequent after-effects will be wiped out in one fell swoop. There are several, state-organised survival projects: there are moon shots, underground chambers. But I think we all understand now that the world as we know it will come to an end.’
Yes, there were plenty of survival projects, some were moon shots, some were underground chambers, but the Warden’s vessel project had been given the best chance of success, and it was in this vessel that Leonard hoped to avoid a premature death.
He held his thumb on the channel changer through the blank 70’s, and on through 100, before the pictures came back again in the single figures. This is where the escapist channels were, back-to-back melodramatic movies from the world’s heydays, romantic comedies from the 1960’s, food fights in the labour-saving kitchens of affluent Americans.
Downstairs, the party was underway because Tony had at last arrived. He breezed in and made a point of not being in the least bit surprised by his own surprise party. He carried his golf clubs in one hand and the lump of asteroid in the other. He downed a glass of punch, listened carefully as an informer whispered in his ear and then headed for the stairs.
The door burst open and Leonard spun around. Tony waltzed in wearing cranky golf gear: a red jumper and tartan trousers.
Before Leonard had a chance to figure out what was going to happen, it happened. Tony hit him hard across the head with the rock. Leonard rolled onto the floor and l
ay there clutching his head in his hands.
‘There you go, how’s that for a taste of things to come?’
Tony hauled Leonard back up into the chair and Leonard sat there assessing the damage.
‘I’m bleeding.’
‘Yes, and it really suits you.’
‘Have you lost your mind?’
‘Of course I have, we all have. Now then, Mr Gopaul, I have a little business proposal to put to you.’
‘Like what?’
‘I believe that my lovely wife would quite like to go to bed with you.’
Leonard felt a sting in his chest and scanned the room for a weapon.
‘Really? But I assure you I have not acted improperly, I…’
‘Hang on, listen to my proposal. What I said was, my lovely wife Adeline came to me to broker a deal. She tells me that she would like to go to bed with you. Therefore I would like to offer you that opportunity. What do you say?’
‘But why the hell would you do such a thing?’
‘It’s strictly business, of course.’
‘What kind of business?’
‘I would need you to pick up a certificate of debt someone has been threatening to call in.’
‘What kind of debt?’
‘It’s an outstanding demand I have not been able to pay. What do you say?’
‘What kind of a demand?’
‘What I owe is, well, I have been asked to leave the city. So that’s the deal. For spending the night with my wife, you will have to pick up my tab and leave the city!’
‘Why are you doing this?’
‘Adeline has not been feeling herself lately; well she hasn’t felt well for quite some time. She’s been down in the dumps.’
‘How long has she been feeling like this?’
‘Four years.’
‘Four years? And when did you two meet?’
‘Four years ago.’
Tony smiled.
‘Well, she moved in with me and then of course we got married.’
‘But what do you think is causing the problem?’
‘Beats me, maybe its hormonal. Will you spend the night with her? It’s what she wants and I only want what’s best for her?’
Leonard was feeling slightly woozy from the weird logic, the unresolved sexual contact and the alcoholic punch.
‘Look, I came here to get on the survival programme. I can’t afford to mess this up, I need to stay in the city.’
‘This survival rumour, it’s way oversubscribed, success is highly unlikely. So, think about the offer, will you?’
‘OK, OK, I’ll think about it.’
‘Good. Now if you’ll excuse me I’d better go and enjoy my party. And you had better leave.’
◊
Leonard woke in the middle of the night, hot and bothered, his throat bone dry, and sweating like a pig. His hair was matted to his face and in one movement he threw off the layers of bedding and stood swaying in the dark. He touched his forehead to check for fever, but it wasn’t that. The room itself was overheating, the temperature was up way too high. He tried the windows but they would only open a crack. His nose was blocked and his eyes were stiff with dehydration. He emptied water from the kettle into a glass and drank it down; he gagged on chips of mineral scale and spat them out.
The radiators were boiling, scalding hot to the touch. They were those heavy, cast-iron ones they use in schools, covered in years of paintwork. The metal edges and the controlling valves were caked in coat after coat of yellowed emulsion. Leonard took a coin and scraped at what he thought might be the temperature control. As the flaking paint came away, a bright, brass-work tap was revealed. It wouldn’t budge and it burnt the palm of his hand when he tried to twist it. He got down on his knees and followed the pipe along the top of the skirting board until it disappeared into the brickwork. He was only wearing pyjama bottoms, so he pulled on a t-shirt and stepped into his slippers.
Outside in the hall he followed the pipe for five metres before it disappeared through the floor. The pipe then snaked through the building with a kind of hydraulic logic, the route followed the path of least resistance ending up by disappearing into a locked boiler room in the sub-basement.
The basement was the arse and heart and brain of the building, all in one place: a junction of wiring, fuse boxes, soil pipes. It was a place that showed how closely the building mimicked human systems. It had a kind of biology, with pipes and ducts, waterways, electrical currents and gases, bringing in all that was needed, and evacuating the by-products.
It was even hotter down here. Leonard hoped that the thermostat control would be easily visible on the boiler itself. There was loud rhythmic noise coming from inside the boiler room, and every so often a whistle or a bird hoot. One of the door panels had been broken and patched with a plank of wood. Leonard pushed the plank to one side, reached in and unlocked the door. It was dimly lit inside but the boiler was easy enough to find, it was a scorched rectangular oven made of heavy, cast-steel. There were several controls down the right-hand side, all with ancient needle dials. Leonard reached up to turn a promising looking disc, and was hit hard across the knuckles with a stick. He screamed out, more in shock than pain, and spun round to see who the hell had hit him.
‘Don’t touch that!’
It was an old lady, a sixty-year-old lady, with a gnarled walking stick in her raised hand.
‘What are you doing in here?’
She was quite a large lady, draped in blouse and skirt, a careful wave in her hair and big, square, horn-rimmed specs. She had a high colour and peachy cheeks, her nose small and rounded. Her eyes cut through, though; they were shallow, narrow eyes, with the shape echoed in surrounding wrinkles. There was no avoiding or mistaking that these were the piercing eyes of greater experience.
‘I was just trying to turn the heat down! It’s too hot!’
‘Says who?’
‘Says me. I’ve got a room up on the second floor and I’m roasting!’
‘Don’t touch anything in here, I’ve got low blood pressure, poor circulation and I need to keep the temperature turned up high, or my blood stops turning. My fingers and toes will freeze up.’
‘But what about the rest of us?’
She’d gone, walked off into the room heading towards a piece of clattering machinery. She stood close by the machine, quite comfortable next to the spinning, tucking and rolling-moving parts. It was a printing press; Leonard had never seen one working. Most paperwork was spat out of an electronic machine these days. The old lady sat and watched the fresh sheets coming off the press. Then she took a deep breath and made a noise, it was that shrill hooting noise he’d heard from outside, birdlike and high pitched. She saw Leonard giving her the sideways glance.
‘Don’t look at me like that, Mr…?’
‘Gopaul, Leonard Gopaul.’
‘My name’s Beryl. My hoot? Well, it’s my locomotive whistle, and this?’
She pointed at the printing press.
‘This is my little train of thought!’
‘Yes, I see…’
‘What happened to your head?’
Leonard touched the wound.
‘I had a run-in with someone.’
Beryl peeled a sheet of paper off the inking plate.
‘You ought to be more careful. Here, have a look at this.’
She handed him a single white foolscap sheet, with a fold in the middle. A tiny, black headline read: Mutating biotech virus may force Asian quarantine. And then in big, bold, red headlines: ROCK STAR AND FASHION MODEL TO MARRY!
‘Rock star and Fashion Model. Is that news?’
‘Don’t fret, it’s just a hook to grab the punters. A headline is like a good spread of jam all over the front page, it’s what makes a newspaper sell like a hot cake.’
Leonard studied the paper.
‘Not the anti-government propaganda I’d expect of a print shop hidden away in a basement.’
‘It’s business, that’s all.
I slip the odd fact in once in a while – but I don’t want to run the risk of losing my readers. This is my livelihood we’re talking about.’
‘I take your point.’
‘I’m always on the lookout for new material, Mr Gopaul. What’s your story, have you been up before the Warden yet?’
‘I have, yes.’
‘And?’
‘God knows, I’ve heard the whole project is a scam, anyway.’
‘Well, of course it is.’
The press ran out of paper, it kept on running though, printing the page onto black, rubber rollers.
‘Excuse me, but could you let yourself out? I’ve got to change the roll. Sorry about the radiators, I just can’t help you there.’
CHAPTER FOUR
Leonard wanted to stay in bed really, it was safe and sound, warm and neutral beneath the covers. But some kind of nighttime conclusion had dislodged itself from the back of his mind and was now rolling down the stairs and becoming conscious. It was the realisation that he’d always been one of life’s assistants, looking over shoulders at what was going on and holding the other end of the piece of wood. But the thing was that from now on, he would have to be the active party, the innovator, now he would have to think like a virus to survive.
A lorry was beeping in the street as it reversed, a distant train rumbled by and a fading aircraft passed overhead. Leonard unbent his left arm so that some blood could flow back into his fingers; he had red marks on his chest where he’d been holding tight to his own body while he slept. He lifted himself up onto his elbows, then he laid his head back down and just listened for a while, building a mental picture from the sound clues. A car hacked through a gear change as it climbed the hill. A diesel engine stalled, started up again and idled unevenly.
He got up and got dressed. He swallowed two Aspirin, hiked his belt in an extra notch, did his bootlaces up tight and left the Mirabelle.
It was early Sunday morning, church bells in the distance, a thin layer of ice underfoot. He felt at ease on the street, even though he’d heard how dangerous the city was becoming.
Cloud Cuckoo Land Page 5
