“ Did you read about that Global Warning? Terrible, it is. They say we’ll be under water before we know it, what with El Neena and all.”
“Ooo yes, I saw that.” Gladys looked with a pinched mouth at the cake she had just bitten, “This Suisse Delice is past its best- they say that the whole of America, and Worthing could be feet deep in water and excrement. I read it in The Echo.”
“The Echo, yes.” Came the echo.
“It’s going to be a watchamacallit, apparently. One of those, ooh, thingy, great big wave-”
“Mega tsunami, yes.” The synchronised provision of fact and accuracy drew a surprised look from the other three. Maude, the provider of the conclusion to the sentence, looked very pleased with herself and took the opportunity to purloin a Chocolate Melt from the cake-stand. Not entirely pleased to have been so deprived of the gooey choice, the original speaker sniffed and continued.
“Still, wave or no tsunami, we’ll live while we can, eh? They’ve got a really good offer on pegs and fabric conditioner at Poundland.”
“Oooh, have they?” Elsie looked positively enlivened by the news, “I haven’t been there for ages you know. Not since…” she stopped and seemed to shrink into her knitwear as she remembered her erstwhile companion, a yellow and blue budgerigar,
“Well, not since they sold me that out of date cuttlefish for my Binky.” She dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief as the others looked on with visible understanding and warmth.
“There, there love,” said Lucille, managing to get a tremor in her voice despite the hundreds of times she had seen this emotional collapse, “he’s gone and didn’t suffer. He’s in Heaven’s Cage now.”
“With his bell and ladder.” Gladys put her arm comfortingly around the shoulders of her gently weeping friend.
“And his mirror and Trill.” Said Lucille.
“- and Trill.” Maude’s querulous echo completed the audio effect.
It was as the tear-jerking memory of the departed feathered friend was reaching its peak, which it did most Tuesdays, that Guntrick decided he and his band should enter the hostelry, and ran at the door.
The warrior had learned a great deal during the centuries in no-man’s land, but none of the learning had related to plate glass and its properties, of which transparency could be deemed to be one of the most specific. What had been intended therefore to be a dramatic charge and frightening entrance into the cosy scene before him, a tactic which had provided on many occasions the chance to slaughter all present in case they were a threat, became in fact a dull thud of painful impact, eye-watering pain and a rapid decline into a supine position.
His acolytes, luckily for them a few paces behind as they swept towards the door, yelling blood-curdling invective, managed to slam on the brakes in time to avoid the collision with the door, and instead stood and stared at it as their leader groaned at their feet. Their lives had been built on simple certainties, which meant that hard things hurt, hot things burnt, and air was air. Now within a few minutes they had travelled through time and space by running at one type of air and seen their leader floored by another which looked to all intents and purposes the same. What kind of witchcraft was this? Not for the first time they reminded themselves how much more complexity there was in death than life.
The ladies, hearing the thud, looked up from their table to see the standing Visigoths peering with a mixture of puzzlement and fear at the door to the Tea Shoppe.
“He wants to open that door if he wants to come in.” Gladys took a sip of her tea. “That’s people today for you all over. Barging in, willy-nilly. No time to open a door like we all had to.”
Elsie nodded, lips pursed in minor distaste. “They’re not local though, are they? Trippers I should think, up from Wales by the look of it, on a chara-”
“ –air-conditioned coach, yes.” Said Maude.
“ They look like those Viking thingies, you know. Always going around pillaging and things. What they would do to the elderly female is no-one’s business to nobody.” Lucille looked vaguely ill as though the mere thought of whatever may have crossed her mind was enough to bring on a fainting fit, which it probably was. Conversely, the very idea seemed to have bucked the others up somewhat, and they stared at the door certainly with a hint of fear, but also with something approaching anticipation.
“Jean!” Lucille beckoned to the young waitress. “Go and answer the door, will you love? There’s some primitives out there and if they’ve got impure thoughts on their minds we ought to find out. We’ve been through the war, so I am sure we can put up with a bit of-”
“-ravishment.” Maude took a sip of her tea.
The young waitress went to the door and pulled it open, staring at the huge bearded men in their animal skins, who stared back and then almost as an afterthought reached down and helped the dazed Guntrick to his feet. Seeing the waitress, he reached for his sword, a reflex at the sight of a stranger which he managed to stop short of bloodshed at the realisation that what was confronting him was a wisp of a girl. He nodded to his compatriots and the four burst hugely into the silence of Sweeney’s, weapons at the ready, only to be confronted by the only patrons, who sat calmly at their table and eyed the newcomers.
“Ooh” Gladys looked from Guntrick to her friends, “I bet he could make up a four at whist.”
“-rummy, yes” said Maude simultaneously.
Nothing in their history, legend, or lives could have possibly prepared the Visigoths for the centuries they had spent wandering the no man’s land between life and eternity. The warrior race had existed and learned in a culture simple in its certainty that if anything stayed till for long enough it was probably land and therefore should be conquered. Granted, for some hundreds of years in the wilderness they had lived broadly by the same tenets, but gradually learned that nothing either stayed still long enough or certainly stayed conquered for long enough to continue to feed the adrenalin required to launch yet another hacking charge on unsuspecting and bewildered souls. They were a tired and ragged bunch by the time they met Ron, and against all of their genealogical make-up, it had been learning rather than bloodletting which had made the more recent years bearable.
Despite that, even Ron’s contribution had not really prepared the warfarers for the revelations they had heaped upon them by four old ladies who were spending a sun-dappled forever in a fabulous miasma of gossip, righteous outrage, tutting, laughter, and the panoply of refreshment which had for each of them been a beacon offering respite in hard times. For them, come pain & illness, loss of children or husbands, nights in darkness listening to the crunch and boom of deadly explosions, the heady mix of this like-minded company, and the brews and treats was the time which had made their lives complete. This, despite all of its failures, was what the Afternet system had detected, giving them the gift of their most pleasurable times, forever.
The ancient warriors shared endless cups of tea, of a huge variety of brews, cakes the sweetness of which was entirely beyond their ken, and a happy hour or two spending time in idle badinage with strangers and not killing them, which said a lot for the effect their time in the neverland between life and eternity had had upon them.
Guntrick’s appreciation of the complexity of the construct in which they had found themselves was completed when he reeled through to the back of the establishment in search of relief for his burgeoning bladder. Hunting for what Maude had called the Water Closet but which he assumed to be a bush, he opened the door instead to the kitchen, whereupon he came face to face with the eponymous Sweeney. The kitchen wasn’t going to pass any Health and Safety inspections in the near future, and its single occupant was tall, ruddy-faced and clearly in a state of exhaustion.
A huge water boiler on the wall drove the searing temperature of the room as well as at intervals scalding Sweeney with superheated steam or boiling water. Enormous industrial ovens baked a succession of delicious cakes which Sweeney would remove with his bare hands, which bubbled and cracked e
ven as he slid on the soapy floor and crashed his limbs and head against various protrusions.
The ladies had told him that they were in Heaven; it was clear that whatever he had done to earn it, Sweeney had his own private Hell. Guntrick silently closed the door and decided to hold his water.
When it came time to leave, the sun, low in the sky, dappled the village green, church bells rang, providing an air of moment to their departure. They wandered slowly to the spear they had left impaled in the turf to mark the entrance to the tunnel. Guntrick turned and looked one last time at the bowed windows of the tea shoppe, where Elsie, Maude, Gladys and Lucille stood and waved.
“Death isn’t so bad, sometimes, is it?” Hansi waved a paw back at the ladies, brimming with emotion.
“ Not bad at all,” said Guntrick, herding his crew towards the shimmering tunnel entrance, “let’s go and tell Ron about ‘tea’.”
Ron, Ethel, Staveley-Down, Abraham Lincoln and a somnolent troop of Visigoths, having had nothing better to do whilst the adventurers had boldly faced the unknown, had taken the opportunity to lounge around pointlessly in the sunshine which had blessed the landscape on that afternoon. Ron had somewhat disconcertingly exposed his legs up to the knee by rolling up his trousers, and Ethel had slipped her blouse and bra from her shoulders, causing much averting of eyes, but having pre-dated sunbathing by some years, the rearguard Visigoths sweated in their animal skins and Lincoln stewed in his black suit. It was Staveley-Down, however, who first spotted the hint of the return of the expeditionary force, remarking a shimmer in the light and shouting loud enough to arouse the sleepy crew.
The time space continuum was first pierced by the hilt of the broadsword implanted in Franzel’s rectum, which hung a few feet above the ground as the waiting group hauled themselves to their feet. He had trundled on ahead, perhaps less laden with chocolate torte and almond slice than the others, and then turned to berate them to catch up. There was a frisson of concern when the hilt disappeared but that was caused simply by its bearer turning round when he became sure that the others were right behind, and then his chest, head, and legs emerged (followed shortly by the hilt, once more), and subsequently Guntrick and the other adventurers.
The sense of relief amongst those who had remained behind was palpable. Ron hopped from foot to foot, Staveley-Down beamed with the air of one vindicated, the Visigoths cheered each time a new figure emerged, and even Lincoln cracked his stony exterior.
Guntrick gathered his team around him and silence fell as he surveyed the motley assembly in front of him. He slowly looked from face to face and then dramatically raised his hand, pointing directly at Ron. The twentieth century nomad at this point gained absolute realization of what it must have been like quietly guarding your ramparts when this giant and his followers pitched up at your gates with only one thing on their minds. He stared nervously back at the man who had become his friend, wondering what recidivicity had occurred the other side of the tunnel.
“Lapsang Souchong!” Guntrick’s voice flew through the quiet and echoed off the hot rocks surrounding them. Ron was scared shitless but mystified.
“Assam!” roared Guntrick, “Ceylon, English Breakfast!”
“Is it a code, Guntrick?” Ron’s voice sounded like that of a cartoon mouse in comparison.
“It’s tea, Ron, tea. You never told us about tea.”
“Or cake.” Interjected Hansi.
It took several hours for the returned heroes to unload the details of their expedition, constantly interrupted to provide more detail, describe once again the old ladies, Sweeney, the waitress, and in particular to provide ever more sumptuous hagiography of the cake. And tea.
Ron had a quiet sidebar with Guntrick.
“Tea never occurred to me, Guntrick. I haven’t seen tea since an hour before I died. South Mimms services. Pot for two and a Ginsters’ cheese lattice.”
“No cake? Dundee, Angel?”
“It was 10.30 in the morning, for heaven’s sake. Has to be savoury at that time.”
“Not even an Eccles?” The big man took in Ron’s slow shake of the head. The Englishman looked over to the rest of the group, who were in animated conversation, and then back to the huge bearded figure before him.
“So what was at the other end?”
“Heaven and Hell, Ron. One place, two experiences. I might want to spend the rest of my death dismembering Romans and standing up to my knees in their entrails; for you that might not be so perfect a dream.”
Ron, whose idea had much more to do with a dry caravan pitch at Selsey Bill, demurred.
“How many tunnels did you see there?”
“Just the one that came back here.”
Ron thought for a moment. “That probably means that this is the hub. Everything radiates from here.” He looked from Guntrick to the others. “Come on then, we’d better go back and see this lot.”
“Wait.” Guntrick grinned hugely at his friend, and rummaged in the pocket of his waistcoat. Finally he held out his hand to Ron, opening it to reveal a heap of deep brown crumbs, which he tipped with a grin onto the palm Ron had extended almost as a shocked reflex.
“Parkin, apparently.” Said Guntrick, and walked in the direction of the noisy crowd.
Ron looked at the grubby pile of moist mixture on his palm, fresh from a five hundred year old pocket. A thick hair, possibly from a long-dead wild boar, or worse, protruded from the fruity mixture and his first thought as he watched the receding back of the enormous marauder was to cast the lot to the ground. There was an aroma, though, a miasma of ginger and fruit, thick with sweetness, and he couldn’t help but take a chunk between finger and thumb and roll it under his nose, where its thick aroma beat upon his senses. Discarding the hair, he thought ‘what the hell?’.
When Staveley-Down, Lincoln, Ethel, and Ron were sitting alone later, as the Visigoths caroused as though they had just invaded Constantinople, Ethel took a handkerchief from her pocket, licked it, and gently wiped the ginger crumbs from around Ron’s mouth. What, they asked each other, does this all mean to them? It was the erstwhile prisoner of war who brought into focus the potential of the tunnels.
“Whoever has us here,” he said, “firstly probably doesn’t want us here, and secondly certainly doesn’t want us wandering about through tunnels to whatever is at the other end. If I have learned anything from my own incarceration it is that things change quite quickly when you start to cause difficulties for those in charge.”
“I thought they just shot a few more of you.” Said Ethel. She glanced at Lincoln, the bullet wound still bright in his head. “No offence.”
“Well, that too.” Staveley-Down admitted.
“It seems to me that we have a choice.” When Lincoln spoke for some reason he attracted complete attention and looks of near-reverence.
“We can stay here and wait for whatever is to happen to us to happen, we can travel forever through the tunnels in the hope that we find at the end of one of them that for which we had hoped, or we can use our knowledge of the tunnels’ existence to create unrest in the hope of forcing the hand of those who control this place.”
Ron had to admit to himself that his erstwhile excitement at the discovery of an ‘escape route’ hadn’t really taken into account the fact that the place to which he escaped might be no better than the one he was living in now. He looked at Staveley-Down and thought of all of the people who had escaped from Colditz on light aeroplanes made out of matchsticks only to end up in Belgium.
“We’re dead, right? I know I’m dead because I didn’t have a steering wheel in my chest when I was alive, just as you two had heads without those holes. There are millions of us here, but we know it isn’t everyone who has ever died, because they’ve just met some other people who died quite recently at the other end of the tunnel. So either we are kept here deliberately or because something’s gone wrong, and either way it’s not acceptable. I didn’t live my life in a bland inoffensive way with occasional contribut
ions to animal charities just so that I wasn’t judged when it came to my death. I demand the right to gain the eternal bliss which I have thoroughly earned in a static caravan at Selsey Bill.”
“What if you aren’t going to get to Selsey Bill? What if you’re going to not exist forever in a traffic queue somewhere? And what about them? They might not want to accelerate access to the path they are likely to follow.” Staveley-Down jerked his head in the direction of the Visigoths, who were roaring with laughter at Adwahl’s descriptions of the vivid hues of Battenburg cake.
“That’s not the point. I lived my whole life on the premise that there just might be an afterlife, but the knowledge that there could just be eternal blackness. Now that I know there is an eternity, I don’t see why I should have to spend it in this place. What about you Abe, you freed the slaves, so you should be looking at some serious mollycoddling.”
Lincoln removed his stovepipe hat and scratched his head in thought.
“Ron’s right.” He said finally, “There will be people here who have lived lives of absolute saintliness and it seems wrong that they are not getting their reward. For those of us who have less claim to perfection, we have to take the risk, just as we did during our lives. For our friends over there I would suggest that the time they have spent here has been more than enough reward for any small kindnesses they may have sneaked into their otherwise devilish existence. A bargain is a bargain and this one is not being kept.”
Ron looked at the rampaging horde, who could, but for the animal skins, thick German accents, and protruding ironmongery, have been a Rugby Club on a stag weekend in Vilnius. Actually, they could have been just that even with those features, but found some sympathy for their plight. Nonetheless, he had had enough of wandering this hinterland and needed some certainty. He turned to Staveley-Down.
The Complete Afternet: All 3 Volumes In One Place (The Afternet) Page 11
