Cloud Walker, All Fools' Day, Far Sunset

by Cooper, Edmund

  By the time they reached the outskirts of the town stars were pricking the now turquoise eggshell of the sky. Greville’s eyes were tired with peering through the windscreen; but they were not too tired to notice the flickering of an oil lamp about a hundred yards along the road.

  It was a typical night prowlers’ set-up, he thought. Someone would be listening for cars, someone else would be organising the block and, no doubt, a small posse of transnormal citizenry would be ready to pounce if they thought the attack could be carried through without much loss.

  ‘Poke a shotgun through the side window,’ said Greville. ‘Don’t shoot until I tell you, and don’t shoot at anything but lights.’

  At the same time as they swung the searchlight on him, Greville switched on his own headlamps. The road block was a poor one – it was only a farm trailer. Furthermore, there was a wide grass verge on the right; and if he drove straight at the three men who were standing on it in the glare of his headlamps, he stood a good chance of getting through.

  ‘Now!’ he shouted.

  The first barrel accomplished nothing except a vaguely human scream; but Liz had better luck with her second try. The searchlight went out.

  Greville put his foot down and headed straight for the three men. They began shooting, but the car’s headlamps must have ruined their aim. The station wagon lurched sickeningly as it hit the grass verge. Then there was a heavy thud and a bump as it hit at least one of them. Then it was through.

  For good measure, Liz fired a couple of backward parting shots, but they probably accomplished nothing. For now there was only darkness once more. Greville switched his lights off immediately, and almost by instinct found his way back to the road.

  ‘Not long, now,’ he said. ‘Providing we get through the town in one piece. Things aren’t quite tough enough yet in this part of the world to make people really desperate. The real danger is not from the locals but from nomads.’

  ‘That road block seemed like a local affair,’ observed Liz.

  ‘It was. But they weren’t really trying, and they hadn’t had much experience. Otherwise we wouldn’t be here.’

  Liz yawned. ‘You almost fill me with optimism.’

  He laughed grimly. ‘Sometimes I even convince myself.’

  They passed through Thetford without any more difficulty. Greville was on home territory and knew his way sufficiently to take the narrow streets at a speed high enough to dismiss all danger of spontaneous attacks. The only thing to be feared was a well prepared block; but fortunately they didn’t encounter any.

  When they were clear of the town, he switched on his headlamps once more, and Liz saw that the car was running along a smooth straight road flanked on either side by tall trees.

  ‘Thetford Chase,’ said Greville. ‘It used to be a national park or something like that. Plenty of deer. I’ll bring you hunting some time.’

  ‘Cheers for the rustic life.’

  ‘It has its moments.’

  A few minutes later they came to the village of Ambergreave. Greville gave a long blast on the car’s horn. It startled Liz out of a semi-doze.

  ‘What the hell did you do that for?’

  ‘A local signal,’ explained Greville. ‘No sense in running the risk of collecting unnecessary pot-shots. Just possibly somebody might be tempted.’

  Liz was surprised. ‘You mean they won’t attack just because you live round here?’

  ‘It’s not an infallible rule. But as I told you, we’re not entirely down to cannibalism in these parts yet.’

  Ambergreave was a long straggly village with most of the houses and cottages set well apart. It took longer to drive through than the town of Thetford and it seemed totally deserted. Presently the station wagon turned off the hard road. Greville changed down into second gear, nursing the car along a narrow bumpy track. Presently the track widened then sloped gently down to the edge of Ambergreave Lake, a broad expanse of water, still as a mirror, reflecting the large low moon like an orange lantern.

  Greville drove along the edge of the lake to a small jetty, then pulled the car up and switched off the engine. But he left the headlamps on, and Liz saw that they were illuminating the shape of a small rowing dinghy.

  She got out of the car, stretched herself cautiously and watched Greville go down to the boat. He lay down on his stomach on the jetty and put his arms into the water, evidently feeling for something round the side of the dinghy.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘De-fusing the transport,’ he retorted laconically.

  Presently he stood up and held out his hands towards her. There was a grenade in each, with a long trailing piece of wire linking them both.

  ‘If anyone wants to come visiting,’ he explained, ‘they have to use the boat. In which case they blow themselves to glory.’

  Liz gazed across the stretch of water at the vaguely outlined patch of land on which Greville’s cottage stood.

  ‘How nice to live on an island,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t we all?’ said Greville. ‘There was once a character called John Donne who used to write poetry and think otherwise. But he was a nut-case. A real nutcase. He had delusions of grandeur … Yes, poor old Donne was up the spout – a regular transie.’ He stowed the grenades in the car, switched off the headlamps and locked the doors. ‘The trouble is, everybody lives on islands and nobody knows how to build rowing-boats … Now come and sit at the back here, and I’ll ferry you home – just like they used to do in the romantic movies.’

  Liz stepped into the boat and sat down. ‘It would be nice to be able to go to the pictures,’ she said wistfully.

  Greville took the oars and pushed off. Suddenly he began to laugh.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘It’s just occurred to me,’ said Greville, ‘that at least ninety per cent of all the film-stars must have survived – for a time at least. Which just goes to show that God – if there is a god – must have a nice sense of humour.’

  ELEVEN

  On the outside and by moonlight Greville’s retreat looked like an uneasy hybrid of miniature pagan temple and Victorian public convenience. It had a broad flight of steps leading up to a small portico flanked by Lilliputian marble columns. The whole of its front was faced with large blocks of some kind of stone; but, as Liz later discovered, the sides and back were of Suffolk brick and with ordinary cottage windows. The steeply sloping roof was covered with pantiles, adding a vague suggestion of the Japanese to its mixed ancestry.

  Greville tied up the dinghy and led Liz up the steps to the massive double-front door – a thing of oak and studs and wrought iron. He pushed it open, felt on the inside wall and pressed a switch. An electric light came on, and somewhere there was the subdued noise of a generator starting automatically.

  ‘It’s marvellous,’ said Liz, surveying the electric light and the untidy but comfortable room that it illuminated.

  ‘It’s what happens when an English country gentleman gets an acropolis complex with pagoda complications,’ remarked Greville drily. ‘Let’s get to bed for Christ’s sake. It’s been somewhat of a day … Do you want anything to eat first?’

  ‘All I want,’ said Liz, ‘is unconsciousness.’

  ‘You can have that for free.’

  The bedroom was a small poky room leading off the far end of the living room. It looked like an afterthought – as indeed it was, along with the tiny kitchen. It contained nothing but a large bed, a chest of drawers and a thick rug that lent a touch of luxury and decadence to the dull brick floor.

  ‘If you want to pee or have a shit,’ said Greville, ‘you’ll have to go outside. There’s a lavatory of sorts just through the kitchen door.’

  ‘I don’t want to do anything,’ yawned Liz, ‘except sleep. I’ve just about had my lot for today … Are we sleeping together?’

  ‘There’s only one bed,’ Greville pointed out. ‘If you prefer the floor you can have it.’

  ‘I don’t, but on the other h
and I don’t think I could face a good screw tonight … Not,’ she hastened to add, ‘that I’m suggesting anything. It’s just that I’m still sore enough not to want it.’

  ‘You disappoint me,’ said Greville. ‘I was just getting myself in the mood for an all-night sex orgy. Now shut up and get into bed.’

  He went out of the bedroom and bolted the outer door, then he came back and bolted the bedroom door. Liz took off her few clothes. So did Greville. He did not look at her.

  ‘Get into bed. I’ll switch off the light.’

  She got into bed and waited for him. Greville kicked off his shoes, switched out the light and joined her. There was a sudden silence as the generator ceased producing electricity.

  For a while they lay side by side, not touching, each of them naked and each of them conscious of the other’s nearness. The darkness and the silence were absolute. They were two children alone in the cosmos, with no one to comfort them but each other.

  Greville, tired though he was, found that he could not sleep. So did Liz. They were too close to each other for comfort – too close and yet too far away.

  ‘Greville,’ whispered Liz at last, ‘if you want it, I think I can face it.’

  ‘Shut up and go to sleep. I don’t want any damn thing.’

  Liz smiled in the darkness. ‘Everybody wants something. If they didn’t they’d just die … What do you want?’

  ‘Peace,’ said Greville.

  ‘You can’t get it alone.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I’ve tried. If I thought I could get it alone I wouldn’t have worried about Jane.’

  ‘I don’t give a tinker’s cuss for Jane.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I don’t give a tinker’s cuss for you, either.’

  ‘Liar! Not for me as a person, maybe. But you want me to depend on you.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. You are just a bloody complication.’

  Liz rolled herself against him. ‘I expect that’s what you need. I bet you’ve been looking for a bloody complication for quite a while.’

  In the darkness Greville hit her. ‘You’re madder than most,’ he said heavily. ‘You like to press your luck.’

  Her face stung, but Liz didn’t turn away. The tears trickled silently down her cheek, and she kept her voice steady so that Greville would not know about them.

  ‘So I’m right, then,’ she murmured. ‘Does it frighten you that somebody else knows?’

  Greville hit her again. ‘Now shut up and go to sleep. Remember you can’t dial 999 anymore. I can do what the hell I like with you.’

  ‘Good night,’ said Liz.

  ‘Good night.’

  Neither of them slept. For an hour or more, Greville tossed and turned, trying, as he thought, to find a comfortable position. Liz just lay there in the dark, wide-eyed and waiting.

  Presently, he grabbed hold of her roughly. There were no preliminaries. ‘Serves you right, doesn’t it?’ he shouted. ‘All you want to do is be flat on your back with your legs wide open.’

  But he had to turn her on her back and open her legs himself.

  Liz said nothing. There was nothing to say. Besides, it was very painful and she felt that if she used her voice at all she would scream or cry out.

  Mercifully, Greville didn’t take long to reach a climax. And when he had finished, when his body became slack and relaxed, when Liz knew that she had conquered the impulse to scream, she cradled him, holding his head to her breast as if he were a small child. She soothed him and whispered meaningless words to him. And so they lay together – each feeling tired and lonely and lost – until daybreak.

  TWELVE

  The day was a most unusual one: it rained from before dawn till after dusk. Greville found later that he could not recall whether it was months or years ago when it had last rained all day. He lay on his back in bed with Liz at his side – doubtless pretending to be asleep – and gazed in delight at the raindrops running down the grey dawn window.

  He concentrated and tried to remember what he had been doing during the last downpour. The memory wouldn’t come, and because it wouldn’t come it annoyed him. It continued to annoy him throughout the rest of the day; for as the rain showed no signs of ceasing, he realised that it was a rather special occasion. There must have been other similar occasions, but they were lost in the fuzz of transnormal happenings in a wholly transnormal world. It was the fact that he couldn’t remember the last time it rained all day that caused him, in the end, to start a diary.

  But meanwhile he lay in bed and watched the rain make patterns on the window, and wondered for perhaps the ten thousandth time why he was still alive.

  He looked at Liz and saw her face in the grey light – a face without cares or wrinkles, frozen by time. The face of a child. A dead child … There was something in him that wanted to cry …

  Liz stirred. The child was resurrected as a woman.

  ‘I’m sorry about last night,’ he said. ‘It must have hurt you.’

  ‘Not much. Besides, I belong to you for the time being. You can do what you like, can’t you?’ The words were hard but the voice was soft. Liz felt she was only stating the fact.

  But the statement triggered off an internal explosion for Greville. ‘Nobody belongs to anybody,’ he snapped. ‘And especially you don’t belong to me. Now if you can divest yourself of the puppy mentality, we’ll get up and see about breakfast.’

  Liz was not perturbed. ‘What’s that scar on your stomach?’

  ‘An old bayonet wound. The only way I could get out of a coal mine was to play dead. Somebody prodded me just to make sure. It didn’t work … Now, breakfast.’

  Breakfast was a lavish affair. Greville managed to produce ham, eggs and home-made bread. He even had a bottle of coffee extract.

  Liz was delighted. ‘Where did you get all this stuff?’

  ‘I have connections,’ he said briefly. ‘I told you things weren’t too hard yet in this part of the world.’

  Much to his surprise the rain was still coming down when breakfast was over.

  ‘What would you like to do today?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing much.’

  ‘That suits me fine. There are one or two things I have to do, but they won’t take long. While I’m doing them, you can tidy this place up.’

  He put on oil-skins and went out into the rain to feed the half-dozen hens that he had caught and partially tamed. When he had done that he poured some petrol with miserly care into the fuel tank of his petrol-paraffin powered generator. Then he topped up the car batteries that provided his illumination. By the time he got back to the folly, the bed was made and the pots had been washed. Liz had found out how to work the two-stroke pump in the kitchen.

  ‘Go easy with the detergent,’ warned Greville, noticing the legacy of suds in the sink. ‘That is one of the things that is very hard to come by.’

  The rain continued, and he didn’t know what to do. If he had been by himself the answer would have been simple. He would have settled down with a book and would probably have lost himself in it till hunger called. Greville was a great one for books. Other people’s books. Books he would like to have written himself. He read them with enthusiasm, delight, disgust, guilt, ecstasy, impatience and envy. But whether they were good, bad or indifferent he always read them with envy. For they were the children that he had never had.

  Chiefly he read novels – stories of a world that no longer existed and that almost seemed now as if it could never have existed. His favourite dislike was an old-fashioned novel called Room At The Top. He felt somehow that it was a kind of photographic negative of certain aspects of his own early life. A negative because, basically, he had never wanted to occupy room at the top. But Pauline had wanted it, and so he had masqueraded for a while as an ambitious go-getter.

  Greville collected and hoarded books the way some transies still collected and hoarded money. Neither were going to be much use, he thought, in a transnormal world. But t
he compulsion was obsessional. Besides, books were almost as good as brandy. They provided an avenue of escape, and the hangover was less noticeable. Also they were considerably easier to come by than brandy. Pretty soon the supply of brandy would give out. But the supply of books would last for a long time yet. Only the rats ate them; and although they were good for lighting fires they were not satisfactory as a basic fuel …

  Greville was tempted to ignore Liz, settle himself with a book, and treat her as if she didn’t exist. The only flaw in the proposition was the last bit. He couldn’t treat her as if she didn’t exist. He had lived alone too long not to be acutely and painfully conscious of someone else’s presence. Besides, he had virtually added to her quota of the previous day’s rapes.

  ‘I’d better show you where things are,’ he said at length. ‘Then you won’t need to keep running to me for every little thing you want.’

  Liz had already discovered the larder, which was surprisingly well stocked with tinned food, bacon, eggs and even fresh butter. Greville took her into the living-room, threw back a rug, and lifted a trap-door.

  ‘The wine cellar of one Augustus Rowley, visionary, philosopher and man of letters,’ he announced.

  Liz laughed. ‘Who died of languishment and a profound melancholy.’

  Greville was surprised. ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘You did – yesterday morning when we were having breakfast by Cleopatra’s Needle … It’s funny. It already seems about a year ago.’

  Oddly Greville didn’t remember. But he was pleased that she had remembered. ‘Time is subjective,’ he announced drily. ‘I thought you would have defined it as several screws ago.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t like me to talk about screwing.’

  ‘Touché. Now come and see what the cellar holds.’

  The cellar held an incongruous store of goods that Greville had collected patiently and sometimes at great risk over a long period. There were piles of canned goods – mostly soup, vegetables and fruit. But there were also some tins of corned beef.