The Land Rover was noisy above about sixty, but the heater worked and he felt like he was getting somewhere at last. If he could just make it out to the construction site and see the thing, make sure it existed, then he would be able to imagine a strategy, devise a way on board. If the application procedure were bullshit, he would go round it and find another way!
Every single streetlight and road sign had been removed, there were no mileage markers or junction indicators; there was nothing to go on. Leonard figured he’d just have to keep going until he met one of the landmarks detailed in Beryl’s directions. She’d started her map in the middle of an A4 sheet, which was a problem because a lot of detail had been squashed in to fit at the bottom of the page. The scale was all over the place and it would be difficult to work out exactly what she meant. Her writing was quite neat, though, a throw-back to severe 1950’s schooling.
By dusk he saw the ‘cement works’ off to the right of the motorway, and knew that this was where he was supposed to exit. He took the slip road and spotted the ‘wide brick bridges over the railway lines’. He drove alongside the tracks until he saw the older and narrower ‘stone bridges over the river’. The river snaked its way downhill, twisting black and silver with the shadows of overhanging trees dappling the surface of the red, iron-rich water.
As daylight fell, the road climbed into higher ground, and each time the Land Rover climbed, the petrol gauge fell right back to zero, a warning that he’d have to find fuel soon.
He slowed and pulled off the road. He needed to stretch his legs and open up his flask of coffee. He sat up on the bonnet and looked out at a peaceful, undulating landscape of low green hills. As the sun set, he climbed a bank up to a pile of jagged green rocks and filled his lungs. The tops of the hills were dusted bright with snow, dark streams running out of the ice flowed down through rust coloured bracken and on towards a lake. The lake was gunmetal blue with faint, polished bird traces criss-crossing the surface. Leonard’s stress level had dropped; the high altitude seemed to unravel idiotic fears, untie stupid knots in his stomach. He held Beryl’s map up against the landscape, and figured that at this rate, he should reach the site in about an hour. He stepped back down the bank and opened the driver’s door.
A flat, rhythmic battering of the air made him stop and look over his shoulder. A small, red helicopter came out of the sunset, and started to turn in toward Leonard’s position. He jumped in and started up, crunched the gears and took off. He had his pass to get onto the vessel, but it was not fool-proof, he didn’t know what he was getting himself into and his cover story was pretty shallow. He drove for a couple of miles with his lights off, until it became pretty impossible to see. Then he caught sight of a very welcome neon sign: it was the petrol station which had been detailed on Beryl’s map. He slowed and turned onto the forecourt, pulled up close to the black diesel pump and the Land Rover shivered to a halt.
He unscrewed the cap and jammed the pump handle into the car. He stood there with his hand on the roof, watching the fruit machine numbers tumble. He reached into the back of the cab to fish out a litre bottle of whisky, hoping that would cover the gas.
If you’ve ever had your arm pushed up your back, you will know that the pain is profound. You realise that you can’t move, and must not move for fear of the last shove which will dislocate your shoulder. Leonard had been taken by surprise; he’d been thrown forward by two heavy figures that had approached silently except for a slight whisper of their nylon waterproofs. Both Leonard’s fists had been hauled up into the middle of his back; his reflex was to lift his foot and kick back, hoping to drag it down the front of someone’s shin. He was lucky to make contact, lucky and very stupid, because he was spun round and belly punched, the kind of deep punch that moved your internal organs around.
Now he could see who was doing this: there were two of them, big men in dark uniform, their faces covered with black balaclavas.
‘That’s enough of that, smart arse!’
Leonard noted the ‘from nowhere’ accent, the wide shoulders and the bull necks, their automatic rifles strapped diagonally across their chests. One of the soldiers checked his face against a photograph and turned to nod to his mate. Leonard was shit-scared, so scared that he wasn’t thinking when he lifted his knee into the man’s exposed crotch, and saw his shoulders lift up to his neck.
‘There’s some fight in the bastard, eh, Geri?’
Geri came over, took the diesel pump out of Leonard’s tank and inserted it into Leonard’s mouth. He had to force it in because Leonard was resisting, he could see where the idea was heading. Geri broke a piece of tooth away, held onto Leonard’s nose and squeezed the trigger. Fluid was rushing down his throat. For a split second, it was just like the consistency of milk shake, but then some taste buds in the back of his throat caught on and he panicked. The diesel ran over his cheeks as he tried to wriggle free; his face was burning and he had to close his eyes, but worst of all, he couldn’t help it, he had to swallow. Then everything went black; Leonard was unconscious.
The two soldiers picked him up, transferred him onto the back seat of their car and spun the wheels as they pulled off the forecourt.
Geri switched his head microphone on.
‘Geri here, hello?’
A voice crackled through static.
‘Use proper etiquette Geri, over!’
‘Ah… this is three four south calling Horncastle, over?’
‘Horncastle reading you, three four south. Sergeant Hayes speaking, over.’
Geri looked over his shoulder at the pathetic body on the back seat.
‘Yeah, bringing in driver of Land Rover, fitting description of one Leonard Gopaul, repeat Leonard Gopaul. Be with you in thirty minutes, over.’
‘Affirmative, three four. Horncastle out.’
Leonard was coming to; he was rolling and vomiting on the back seat, choking the poison out of his stomach. Geri looked round again.
‘He’s making a right fucking mess back there.’
‘We’ll hose him down when we get back to camp.’
The movement of the car threw Leonard’s body around, but under the driver’s seat was his first bit of luck, a box of matches. He reached out, opened the box and struck one. The regurgitated diesel started to burn, and he slipped his oil-soaked coat off, transferred his paperwork into his trousers and held the coat to the flames. The fire started instantly. Leonard got up from down behind the back seat and wrapped the melting, smoking nylon around the driver’s eyes. Geri tried to unstrap his rifle but by the time he had taken aim, Leonard had leant on the door-handle and rolled out of the line of fire, onto the road. As he tumbled to a halt, he saw the car skid off the road; it hit a stone wall and burst into flames.
Leonard was still emptying himself out. He was on his knees and still gagging diesel, his throat burning and his head spinning.
He got to his feet and wandered off the road, knelt down and cupped his hands in shallow ditchwater beside the road. He sucked the water down, rinsed his mouth and spat it out; he washed his face, cleaned as much of the stuff off as he could. He was cold, shaking with fear but glad to be alive.
He knew that he should keep moving, so he picked himself up again and started to stumble along beside the road. His elbows were bleeding and his shoulders and hips were cut and grazed.
Staying close to the road, though, was not a great idea; he was visible and maybe the burning car would bring in more soldiers. Leonard just wanted to get away, get some distance between him and the car wreck. He cut back off the road and made his way uphill through long, wet grass and spongy soil. He climbed up over the first ridge in his sight line. Only a glimmer of daylight remained as the red sun was already way down below the horizon. He followed a narrow path across a long, steep slope, down into boggy ground. The path split in two, giving no clues as to which was the right way. A phrase which he’d never quite understood came to mind - ‘died of exposure’. Now he could see how something like that coul
d happen. He was cold without his coat and unsteady on his feet, the aftertaste of diesel made him wretch and spit.
A sweet, musky smell hit his nose; it had wafted in on the breeze blowing from Leonard’s right. He turned off the path and headed upwind into the fragrance. It was a citrus smell, an unnatural and pretentious, Saturday night whiff. Leonard could see a man walking along a track fifty metres ahead, going left to right. He had a rucksack on and a coat with a hood. Not a soldier, he looked too small and he was wearing civilian clothes.
Leonard shouted out.
‘Hello!’
The figure turned his head and stopped.
Leonard explained.
‘I’m lost.’
He started to walk towards the man, but the figure turned away and carried on walking along his path, faster than before.
‘I need help!’
The figure stopped and turned again but made no move towards Leonard. He took his hands out of his pockets and lifted some binoculars up to his eyes. Leonard was really feeling the cold now, his legs shaking with downhill fatigue. His head was splitting open, he had a searing pain behind his eyes which throbbed in time with his heartbeat. The figure called out.
‘What d’you want?’
It was a young man’s voice, quite a thin, passive voice.
Leonard approached.
‘I had a car accident and I need to get myself seen to, that’s all. Do you live round here?’
The figure lifted his wrist, pulled back the arm of his coat to look at his watch.
‘I’m late for a split shift.’
Leonard stopped in front of the man, looking pretty fucked.
‘You don’t look too good.’
Leonard offered his hand.
‘Leonard.’
The man’s grip was reluctant.
‘I’m Dave.’
‘I know I look like shit. I’m lucky to be alive, though, and I need to clean up and get warm.’
Dave knocked his hood back off his head and rested his hands on his hips.
‘You’d better come with me, I think we’ve got a first aid kit at the factory.’
‘Thanks.’
Dave kept his head down and led the way; he never once looked over his shoulder to check if Leonard was following. And he didn’t say a word apart from ‘shit’ or ‘fuck’ a couple of times when he stumbled on muddy ground.
The path eventually met a road and the road ended at a fenced off group of brick buildings with steep, slate rooflines.
Leonard followed Dave down alongside the first building, past empty wooden packing cases and sacks of polystyrene chips.
As they approached a double door, savage barking came from a security van parked beside the building. The black tip of a dog’s nose pushed itself up against the glass and snorted the air coming in through a small gap. Leonard recognised the crinkly black skin around flaring nostrils, it was the nose of an Alsatian guard dog.
‘Reception’ consisted of one leatherette swivel chair and a low smoked glass table with copies of ‘Forecast News’ stacked in the centre. As Dave walked through, he nodded his head towards a mousy girl in a black trouser-suit, sitting behind a metal desk.
‘Alright, Halima?’
Halima replied, ‘Hello Dave’ back at him and looked Leonard up and down. He tried to look harmless and followed Dave through a door marked ‘Factory Floor, no unauthorised personnel.’
Dave took his rucksack and coat off and sat down at his workbench. He rested his hands on his thighs and took a moment to himself before he started.
On the work surface in front of him were cutting tools and paint pots, fret saws and jigsaws, mitre blocks and G clamps. And then some examples of his labours: various weather forecasting symbols in different stages of completion. There were cut-outs of storm clouds, grey with lightning flashes, or a paler shade with pearly raindrops falling, white cumulous with peek-a-boo yellow suns trying to break through, snow flakes, Fahrenheit and Celsius temperature indicators, wind direction arrows and whole yellow discs of sunshine with jagged rays. Dave flicked a wall switch on and somewhere beneath the bench, a compressed air pump buzzed into life. He started heating glue, arranging paints, clipping clouds into stands, and positioning stencils.
Leonard tapped Dave on the shoulder as he pulled on his eye protection and tested his airbrush.
‘Yes? Oh, sorry, I’m on price work so have to get stuck in from the off. First aid’s in the green box over there on the wall, and make yourself a cup of tea if you want. You’d better not hang around too long, we’ve got security here and they swing round a couple of times each shift, they’ll probably want to ask you some awkward questions.’
Leonard nodded and turned to the window. The bench beneath it was cluttered with rejected work; spare flood warnings, spiralling anti-depressions, tangled isobars and unlikely long-range weather fronts.
Leonard opened up the first aid kit, cleaned his wounds and rubbed antiseptic into his cuts. He swallowed Kaolin and morphine, bicarbonate of soda and three Aspirin, then he washed it all down with a gallon of tea. He ripped off the top of a Tupperware box and ate what was left of the chocolate roll inside. He looked into Dave’s rucksack lying open on the floor: inside was a bottle of aftershave. Leonard dropped down to retie his laces and lifted the gold-topped bottle into his pocket as he stood up.
Dave was completely focused on his work, turning a rain cloud in his hands, checking for faults, so Leonard started to move off, back towards the reception.
‘Leonard?’
‘Yeah?’
Dave pointed to the other end of the factory floor.
‘It’s better if you go that way, the receptionist’s a nosey cow.’
‘Right, thanks.’
‘Don’t mention it!’
As Leonard walked the length of the factory floor, a couple of men looked up from their work, but most kept their heads down, their scalpels concentrated on a clean-cut line.
He pushed through the exit door into a whitewashed hallway with faded red floor paint. Concrete steps led up some stairs to his left but he turned toward the emergency exit instead. A grey-green fungal bloom spread from the edge of the door; it was padlocked shut but the frame was wet, rotted through. Leonard gave the frame a kick, and flakes of soft timber dropped and wood lice ran out the bottom. He kicked again and this time, with a push as well, the door broke open.
Leonard made his way along the side of the building, crouching down low when he passed the windows. As he approached the security van, the dog kicked off again barking, howling and jamming its nose to the open section of the driver’s side window. Leonard wanted to make sure the dog wouldn’t be used to hunt him down. He took the bottle of aftershave out of his pocket and squeezed a good dose of it straight down into the dog’s sniffing nostrils. The barking immediately changed pitch, became inquiring and almost musical, then there was silence followed by snorting and heavy sneezing.
◊
Leonard ran uphill from the factory, his knees were still wet and he was feeling the cold again without a coat. He made for high ground in the hope of getting his bearings, in the hope of maybe seeing some lights that might lead him to the construction site. His map was useless, it only worked from one direction and he had no chance of matching up landmarks in the middle of a field at night. His right knee was throbbing as he got to the top of a ridge and he was starting to limp and favour one leg. In the darkness he could just see the shape of the landscape, dark hills overlapping and receding into deep shadow. The snow on higher ground bounced some hazy moonlight into the valleys, but he still had no idea which way to go. A hard wind was blowing over the ridge, Leonard was walking straight into it, and the cold was running round his jaw and setting off an old twinge in a badly crowned back tooth.
He took out a pocket torch and shined the thin beam over Adeline’s aerial photographs. He wasn’t sure but there was a rough match to the main features of the surrounding geography. He figured out the lie of the valleys,
the way they ran away from the higher ground to the east, but it was confusing. Glacial features fanning out across the photographs were not easy to identify at ground level. He scanned the horizon, turning slowly until he noticed a haze of orange electrical light. Leonard smiled; it was maybe an hour’s walk away but it was probably the most likely place for the construction site. He decided to stay high on the side of the valley and cut the distance with a long diagonal track, then get onto the road that ran along the valley floor.
He lost his bearings as he made his way down along the side of a hill, but when he climbed up again, the lights coming from the centre of the valley were stronger. A helicopter came over the brow of a hill and flew fast and low overhead. Leonard didn’t have time to dive for cover. He took a bearing on the flashing tail-light and realised that he was on the right track.
An hour later the construction site was visible: five domed enclosures, huge curved spans clustered together. Leonard decided to pick his way down the slope and join the road.
His stomach rumbled with nerves and hunger, fear of further security patrols and worries over whether Beryl’s paperwork would carry any weight.
The road, when he jumped down onto it, was wide and smooth and stained with oil. Large pieces of shredded tyre lay alongside the road, the cast rubber from heavy vehicles; those articulated trucks with doubled-up wheels. Under heavy loading, the tyres locked up and just peeled off.
He kept moving. He passed a line of floodlit helicopters parked in a landing field off to the left. After twenty minutes, wire fences sprouted up on each side, with security cameras mounted on top of ten-metre poles. He was in sight now; on a monitor somewhere, he was being pointed out, discussed, anticipated.
His shirt and the bottoms of his trousers were caked with mud, he knew that he must look a mess so he made an effort to brush his hair down with his fingers. There was noise on the road behind him, engine and tyre noise, then a row of headlights approached. He stepped aside to let the Chevrolet pass. The driver stared at him so Leonard thought to wave; the man, a Chinese man, smiled and waved back.
Cloud Cuckoo Land Page 10
