‘Tickets,’ he grunted.
‘Two to Borth,’ said Dermot. ‘Singles.’
‘You look it,’ said the guard. ‘Two singles to Borth …’
He began to press buttons and switch switches, revolving the handle every now and then. The contraption emitted metallic sounds and, in the fullness of time, a pair of tickets. The guard looked at them.
‘That’ll be twenty pounds,’ he said.
‘No,’ said Dermot, ‘you misunderstand. We want to go to Borth, not buy the place. It doesn’t cost twenty pounds to go to fucking London.’
‘Well it does on this fucking train,’ explained the guard. He managed not only to match Dermot’s ferocity of tone, but also to look more threatening than Dermot had ever managed. Dermot’s hackles rose, but he didn’t look confident. The guard’s cap rested on the top of a low and bony forehead. Under that, a pair of eyes glowered from either side of a small round nose so heavily covered with broken veins that it looked like a detailed street map of central Birmingham. Under the nose, a lipless mouth opened in a snarl, revealing discoloured teeth set at a variety of angles. Thick stubble covered much of the face and the parts of the scalp not covered by the cap. The overall impression would have had Charles Darwin going back to the drawing board. It had Dermot going back several paces.
‘Well, if those are the charges, those are the charges,’ said Dermot. ‘That’s the price you pay for comfort.’
‘You’ll have to change,’ said the guard. ‘Borth is on a branch line, and you’ll have to change at Abertawr. You’ll have a short wait there.’
‘How long?’ I asked.
‘Might only be an hour and a half,’ explained the guard. ‘If things work out with the connections.’
I handed over two ten-pound notes, and he gave me the tickets. With a last glare at the suddenly tame Dermot, the guard strode back into the driver’s cab.
‘What happened to you?’ I asked Dermot. ‘I didn’t think you were afraid of anything.’
‘Nothing human,’ he said. ‘He’s from a very low branch of the family tree, isn’t he?’
‘Where’s Abertawr?’
‘Never heard of it. I hope there’s more to do there than there was at fucking Bethel.’
II
There wasn’t much more to do at Abertawr, but there was at least a waiting room. The waiting room had wooden benches and no heating, and some posters for local attractions. We missed the connection, and had to wait there eighty-seven minutes before the next Borth-bound express limped into the station. Between the seven-mile hike over muddy fields and the waits between trains, coupled with Dermot’s requirement for a lunch break before we started, it was already after 7 pm. The small local train, which gave the impression that it might be used as a trough for fodder when not needed for transportation, was scheduled to stop at every hamlet or crossroads on the way, thus taking over an hour to go less than twenty miles. No one checked our tickets, and there were no other passengers. It was impossible to see outside because the evening sky was so dark that the windows turned into mirrors. I could see myself reflected, and the reflections of those reflections. Dermot skulked at the end of the carriage, reading the instructions for the use of the emergency brake over and over again.
The single light we saw for that last stage of the journey came from a house in the throat of the estuary. It stood on a little island of its own, with the mainland on either side. A wooden bridge connected it to the real world. I had seen it before, from the road on the way to Borth. I had always wanted to go there. I wanted to know what it was like, living in a house unconnected to the world, being so physically apart. Lighthouse keepers and sailors on long journeys used to get cabin fever, and skin the first mate or declare themselves emperor of the known territories. I had always wanted to go to that little house, and seeing it now as the train crawled along the bank of the estuary I knew that I never would. The time for walking over there had been while I was a student, when you were given allowances. That was a world that was now closed.
Dermot didn’t look at the house. He was still reading about the emergency brake.
Finally the train pulled into Borth Station, which was in better condition than any of the other stations we’d endured. There were two waiting rooms, and toilets. There was a footbridge across the tracks, and staff who, while not exactly pleased to see us, at least didn’t look as though they’d attack us on sight. We walked up the little road that led from the station to the main road.
‘Nearly there,’ I said.
‘What are we going to do?’ asked Dermot, looking along the road. All of the shops were closed, and few windows were illuminated. The rain had stopped, but grudgingly. A large puddle made up of many sub-puddles ran the length of the town. A few figures, warmly wrapped, splashed along the pavements.
‘Walk to the college,’ I said. ‘Or get a taxi.’
‘Are there any taxis?’
‘I’ve never seen one. There must be one.’
‘And after we’ve been to the college? What do we do then? Doss down in a fucking hedge?’
‘What are you getting at?’
‘Well, if we’re going to be here overnight, perhaps it’d be an idea to sort a room out now. To avoid the rush later on. They do have rooms here, I mean they don’t live in burrows or anything?’
‘We could try the pubs.’
‘Is there a hotel?’
‘There might be.’
‘Lead on, then. You know this place better than I do. I’m just a visitor. I’m only a passing tourist.’
We were at the end of town closest to the college, and farthest from the war memorial. The body of the town lay before us, a single road lined on either side with extremely shut shops. What lights there were shone from the rooms above the shops. There was little noise. We walked along the road, past the award-winning toilets – now closed – and the tourist information centre. We passed two pubs on our long walk through the long town, neither of them offering rooms. On the verge of giving up, close to the amusement arcade at the wrong end of town, we saw a hotel called Belle Vie. Perhaps the sign was missing a letter. If not, the owner was either extremely optimistic or hopelessly misguided.
VACANCIES, said a sign in a window.
‘Here we go then,’ said Dermot, striding into the lobby and ringing a bell on the reception desk. A short, harassed-looking man arrived, tucking his shirt into his trousers.
‘Yes?’ he said.
‘Can we have rooms?’
‘What, now? Can’t you come back in the morning?’
‘We won’t need them in the morning. We need them now. In the morning we’ll be going away again.’
‘Well, is it two rooms then?’
‘Yes it is. I don’t want to share a room with this idiot.’
‘I can understand that. Here, sign that. That’ll be fifty each.’
‘How much? Is everyone in Wales trying to fleece us?’
‘Well, it’s more of a national characteristic, really. We’ve been fleecing up here for centuries, see. It’s not easy to stop.’
‘Pay the man,’ said Dermot.
I handed over my card, and the man took it away, looking a little puzzled. There was a conversation in Welsh from out of sight. The man’s gentle voice was interrupted at frequent intervals by a much louder and shriller female voice, which proceeded in what seemed to be an explanatory way.
He returned after some minutes of discussion, handed me the card and a receipt in exchange for my signature, and gave us each a key.
‘There,’ he said. ‘That’ll be rooms twelve and thirteen.’
‘I didn’t think hotels had a room thirteen.’
‘No, and I didn’t think anyone would care much. We’re not living in the Dark Ages now, are we? We shut the doors at midnight, but you have a key there that’ll let you in. Phone calls are extra. Room service is out of the question. Is there anything else you need to know?’
‘Is there a taxi service round her
e?’
‘No. There are some in Aberystwyth but they don’t come by here. No call for them, see. Where you going to?’
‘The college.’
‘Have they got a dance on?’
‘We just need to sort something out.’
‘Well, try and do it before midnight, only it wakes the missus up if people come in late. You’ve heard of the Welsh dragon?’
We nodded.
‘There you are then. Well, looks like you’ll be walking. Hope you get along alright. It’s a dark old road.’
We pocketed our keys and went back out. Borth was still sleeping. There were a few stars visible, showing that the clouds were parting. Presumably the clouds were empty, or perhaps just exhausted.
‘We can get a lift back,’ said Dermot. ‘I can get us a lift back no trouble.’
‘Get us one there, then.’
‘There are no fucking cars here. They’re not allowed after 8 pm because they wake the missus up.’
‘Do you want to walk along the beach?’
Dermot did. At that end of town, the sea wall was only a foot high, looking more like a suburban garden wall than a device for holding the mighty ocean at bay. We stepped over it and onto the pebbles.
Dermot fell over at once.
‘Fuck,’ he said, getting up and falling over in another direction. He stood again, and moved very gingerly in the direction of the sea. The tide was miles out, and we found a thin band of sand to walk along. Every hundred feet, we had to clamber over wooden groynes holding clusters of cockles and bunches of tightly clenched sea anemones. The backs of the houses on that side of the road had a view out over the bay, and many of them had large rear windows, and often balconies. No one was out just then, with it being dark and cold. A couple held hands and walked their dog along the beach; the dog was a black Labrador retriever, and it was delighted by everything. It ran over the beach as though there was no trick to it, although Dermot could hardly stand upright. Perhaps he’d done more damage to his ankle than he realized at the railway station.
At the far end of town, we got back onto the road and walked between the sundered halves of the golf course. The road took a right turn and headed inland.
We walked on, out of the lights of the town and into the darkness. There were no streetlights, and no cars passing. There were no houses. The sound of the sea falling against the land came from behind us. On the left, a hedge rose and hid the estuary, although its smell – the stink of uncovered things rotting – reached us all too easily. On the right, small trees – never more than six feet tall, and looking something like bare hawthorn bushes – stood between us and the flat salt marsh which sat between Borth and the grey hills.
A sharp wind flew at us intermittently, flapping our clothes. I hadn’t dressed for a walk in cold weather, and neither had Dermot. He was still trying his mobile from time to time, although there was no one he could ring. The calls of night creatures came across the marsh, odd howls and strange grunts and snuffles. Dermot didn’t seem to notice, but then, nothing was quacking.
After a mile I saw a tree with broken branches and a splintered trunk, and knew that it was the tree Trish Newton had driven into, taking her out of the picture. Along with my offspring, of course. There was no proof that it was the right tree – or the wrong one, I suppose – but I knew it.
‘This is the tree,’ I said.
‘This where she did a Bolan is it?’ asked Dermot. ‘How do you know that, then?’
‘It’s broken. It’s snapped.’ I was too tired to pick up on the first thing he’d said. There was no point getting into an argument with him, not there in the early evening dark with the sounds of unknown beasties coming across the marshes.
‘That’s sorted, then. Must be the one. There are only hundreds of the fucking things, after all. There’s only an orchard to choose from. Come on then, let’s get on with it. We’re late enough now.’
Perhaps he was right. A few hundred yards further on, I saw another smashed tree, this one ending in a frozen spray of broken wood about two feet from the ground. That, too, I thought was the one she’d hit.
I could smell the estuary, and I could hear the sea. Had she been hearing and smelling the same things, upside down in the dark with the internal damage and the suddenly fragmented interior poking sharp edges into her, or had she been smelling her own damage and listening to herself? Would the unborn thing, my next generation, have died when she died or struggled on for a while inside the cooling body?
There was no point to the questions. Every fifth tree had been damaged, because the college was nearby and students these days all drive, and all drive when they’re drunk because accidents only happen to other people, along with old age and disease.
It was dark, and the starlight was old and dead.
Dermot walked on, not complaining, a man with a mission.
Something kept pace with us, behind the line of small trees. Something smaller than a man but shaped much like one was following us. Whenever I looked at it, it scurried out of sight or dropped flat to the sodden ground, swallowed by the hummocks and puddles. Small, bright eyes watched us. It was smaller than it had been when it had hauled itself out of the surface of a mirror and wrecked Roger’s experiment.
It had come back to its birthplace, if it had ever left. Where else would it go? It was not nearly human enough to live with humans. We’re too finicky.
‘Here we are,’ said Dermot. Catching up with him, I saw a few lights ahead of us, glowing from the windows of the college buildings. Not many lights were on. It was, I realized, the first week of the holiday. No students would be there. There were still staff on site, obviously.
The thing that had been following us – my next generation, the one that had come successfully to term – slinked away from the road, heading for the college.
‘What was that thing?’ asked Dermot, who had noticed it after all.
‘I made it,’ I said. ‘It turned up in the experiment. I don’t know what it was.’
He was striding across the car park, towards the college itself. I followed him past a familiar car, and it disgorged two familiar people.
‘Welcome back,’ said Roger. ‘You must have taken the long way round, we’ve been waiting for hours.’
Tina stood on the far side of the car, adjusting her hair although nothing was wrong with it.
‘Hi guys,’ said Dermot. ‘I’ve been trying to call you but the phones don’t work out here in the fucking jungle.’
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.
‘I asked them to come,’ said Dermot. ‘I called them from the Slipped Disc when you went to the gents. That’ll teach you to spend so long in the toilet, won’t it? They need to be here. They were here when it started. If you want to get everything back, all that stuff you got rid of, they need to be here.’
Again, it wasn’t worth arguing with them. They were there and there was no way to get rid of them.
‘I took a copy of the keys when I left,’ said Roger. ‘So we’ll be able to get in.’
‘Come on,’ said Tina, taking my hand. ‘You’ll be better for this.’
‘That’s a matter of opinion,’ said Dermot. ‘Some people wouldn’t agree with that.’
‘Well, perhaps we’ll invite them to express their opinion later,’ said Roger. Tina was pulling me towards the college. Roger and Dermot walked ahead of us.
We walked past the main entrance, around the edge of the building. In the middle of the rear wall, a fire door stood closed. Roger unlocked it and led us in. Inside, dark corridors appeared to go on for miles. Roger led the way to a staircase and we started up.
As we passed the first-floor landing, we heard the door open below us. It closed. Something began to move towards us. It was inept at stealth.
‘We have company,’ said Roger. ‘Let’s hope it’s friendly.’
Tina hauled me from the stairwell and along the top corridor. Roger turned on the lights. The endless corridor shrank,
fixed by the illumination.
‘304’, read the sign on a door that had no window and was painted a dull white. Roger opened it.
‘It’s not that room,’ said Tina. ‘We went in there while you got it all in order.’
‘Right you are,’ said Roger. ‘It was this one.’
He led us to the next room, and we all went in. He turned on the lights.
It was nothing like the room I remembered. Initially that had been full of mirrors, and later of broken glass. This one was almost empty.
‘They still don’t do anything useful in here,’ he said. ‘I suppose we ought to wait until we’ve all gathered.’
There were hesitant sounds from the corridor. The door opened, pushed by the thing that came in. It was my old friend, the thing that I’d left Borth to avoid. The thing I’d created there. It was four feet tall and humanoid, although its arms were too long for its body. It had long fingers, and long toes, and it was naked. Its skin was dark greyish in that light. Its eyes were yellow. Its face was upsetting, because it looked like mine, badly rendered. It looked like me in lo-rez.
‘That’s the lot,’ said Tina. ‘Now, are you going to tell us what’s going on?’
‘Me?’ I asked. ‘I don’t know.’
‘I can’t tell you,’ said Dermot. ‘You told me not to. When you made me, you told me not to tell you anything. That was a hint,’ said Dermot. ‘I’m allowed to do hints. You didn’t say anything about them.’
As though he’d opened a door, or turned on a light, I had the first traces of sketchy memories. I had been very drunk, and there had been very bad news.
Execution Plan Page 24
