Maybe there aren’t many people on Earth who know that, as yet—but we know it, because we’ve been told the stories and shown the sketchy outlines of the pattern. We can tell.
We’ve opened the Can of Worms, and we don’t have to be disgusted by what we see, no matter how terrifying it might be, because we understand—don’t we?—that a can of worms is infinitely better than a can’t.
<
* * * *
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Hearing the Voice of Sanity
As Milly had often said, the East Grimstead branch of AlAbAn was a very supportive support group. Walter Wainwright thanked Steve very kindly once he had taken his seat again—feeling only slightly queasy, thanks to his new-found mastery of the art of relaxation. Everyone else in the group agreed that his sketchy theory about the workings of the collective unconscious, and the contribution that AlAbAn was making to it—even though the end of the world as its members knew it was pretty much at hand—had given them a lot of food for thought, which they would try their very best to digest. No one thanked him personally for casting new light on their own experiences, but no one cast a shadow of doubt on anything he’d said or challenged the coherency of his own narrative.
As they were on their way out to the car, though, he said to Milly: “I should have written it down. It was too rushed, too unbalanced, too crowded. I could have done better. I should have taken more time to prepare a lesson-plan. It isn’t as if I haven’t had practice, and time to figure out my own weaknesses in that respect”
“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Milly said. Then, pausing en route and turning to face him, she said: “You know don’t you, that I’d never ask you to go on a foreign holiday, or to drive across the Severn Bridge, or to go up the bell-tower in Salisbury Cathedral— and I wouldn’t be disappointed in you, either. I wouldn’t be compromising my own ambitions.”
“No,” Steve said, “I didn’t know.”
“Well, you do now,” she said. After another pause, she added: “But I don’t suppose it’s enough, is it?”
“It’s more than enough,” Steve assured her. “The catch is that it doesn’t quite solve the problem, does it? We both still feel badly about Janine. That wouldn’t last forever, though. If we were to give it time...if we were able to give it time....”
He was floundering, and would probably have trailed off anyway even if he hadn’t been interrupted, but Milly had already turned away because Alison was running to catch up with them.
“Sorry,” Alison, said. “I know it’s a bit of a cheek, Steve, but you couldn’t possibly give me a lift back to town, could you? Mr. Wainwright’s already got two other passengers as well as Janine, and I feel a bit uncomfortable crushed in the back seat with those morose old men. If you’d rather I didn’t, it’s okay.”
“No, that’s all right,” Milly said. “We’ve plenty of room in our back seat, haven’t we, Steve?”
“Yes,” Steve said, not quite sure when the Citroen’s back seat had become “ours”, or whether it was really Milly’s prerogative to decide who was entitled to sit in it.
Once they were all aboard, Milly turned to Steve, blatantly ignoring Alison, and said: “We don’t have to come to the next meeting, Steve. We’ve told our stories now. We don’t ever have to come again, if we don’t want to.”
“Of course we do,” Steve said. “Telling the stories doesn’t solve anything, in itself. That’s why people like Neville—he’s one of your morose old man, Alison—have to keep coming back, telling them over and over again, worrying away at the underlying problems. To solve the problems, you have to be able to learn, not just from the stories themselves, but from the underlying patterns and the underlying meanings. We have to figure out how we ought to fit into the universe and one another’s lives. If Janine’s begun to remember, I want to hear what she’s remembered—but it’s not just her. I want to hear all the other stories too. Don’t you?”
“I suppose so,” Milly said. “I’m the one who’s been coming for ages, after all. It was my thing before it was anyone else’s, and I suppose it’s still my thing now that everyone else has joined in. Did you enjoy it, Ali? Oh, sorry!”
The exclamation that interrupted Alison’s reply was caused by the fact that Milly’s phone was vibrating in her pocket again. She pulled it out and said; “Yes, Mummy, I can talk.” Then her attitude changed. Had it not been so dark in the car, Steve knew, he and Alison would have been able to see her turn pale. He didn’t need the confirmation of Milly’s muttered curse to know that her unconscious father had just given up the unequal struggle to maintain his terminally-damaged body.
Steve kept his eyes firmly on the road while the brief telephone conversation continued to its inevitable end. Alison never made a sound. Neither of them spoke when Milly put the phone away; they waited for a signal.
Milly didn’t break into tears. She swore several times more, under her breath, and then said: “I suppose he’d have thought, if he were still capable of thinking, that he’d be saving us trouble, ducking out with four days still to go till Christmas. He wasn’t to know that I’d be in Salisbury, desperately trying to fix things up with my boy-friend by planning to have a private Christmas with him, tomorrow, before having to go back to look after Mum—a private Christmas for which I’ve already bought all the food, all of which will spoil and go to waste while I’m away...along with the relationship, in all probability. He didn’t mean to inconvenience anyone by not taking his bloody tablets, and he doesn’t now. It’s just bad luck.”
“I didn’t know...,” Steve began.
“I know you didn’t know,” Milly said. “I was just about to tell you. No point, now. Shit happens, as Janine’s so fond of saying, Things get spoiled. Sometimes it’s somebody’s fault—mine as often as anyone else’s—and sometimes it’s not. Let’s just hope there’s a bloody train, and that you can get me to the station in time to catch it.”
“No,” Steve said, feeling that it was now time to be assertive. “I’ll drop Alison off, and then I’ll drive you to your flat. While you’re packing, I’ll load the food you bought for tomorrow into the boot—given that we’re well into the hours of darkness on the longest night of the year, it’ll be better than a fridge. Then I’ll drive you to Bath. Tomorrow, I’ll cook the food. It’ll probably see me through weekend, but none of it will spoil and nothing will go to waste. I promise you—nothing will spoil and nothing will go to waste. Okay?”
“I get it,” Milly said. “Double meanings and all. Thanks. Have you ever driven to Bath before?”
“No,” Steve said, “but that’s of no consequence. I’ll take the most direct route and I’ll cross any bridges I happen to meet on the way without a moment’s hesitation. I’ve been practicing.”
“At least it’s the right side of the Avon Gorge,” Milly said.
“It wouldn’t matter,” Steve said, doggedly, although he knew that it was probably a lie. “I will get you to where you need to be. You’ll have to direct me to your place though, Alison. I don’t know where it is.”
“I’ll tell you which way to go when we get to town,” Alison assured him. “It’s only a couple of streets away from Mil’s, so you won’t lose any time.”
“I might not be able to get back until the new year,” Milly remarked. “This isn’t the best time of year for arranging a funeral.”
“It’s okay,” Steve said. “When it’s all done, we can start over. There’ll still be time enough before the end of the world to gather a few rosebuds where and when we may, and even make merry once the mourning’s done.”
“You certainly know how to cheer a girl up, Steve,” Milly said, dourly. “Don’t you think that we ought to dedicate ourselves to doing something useful, maybe in the desperate attempt to preserve the ecosphere, rather than investing our precious remaining moments in mere pleasure-seeking.”
“It’s not mere,” Steve told her. “That’s the whole point of my theory—although you only glim
psed the barest shadow of it tonight. Our pleasure-seeking isn’t just the jetsam of contemporary consciousness, of no significance whatsoever in the scheme of things. Because time travel exists, even if it’s just a matter of mind, everything counts.”
“And what if time travel doesn’t exist?” Milly asked. “What if it’s all just a tissue of fanciful lies?”
“If time travel doesn’t exist yet,” Steve said, “we, or someone like us, will have to invent it. It’s okay, Milly. We can afford to be patient. We, and they, have all the time in the world.”
* * * *
By the time Steve had fulfilled his promises to Milly and driven back to Salisbury from Bath it was three o’clock in the morning. He unloaded the car as quietly as he could, and then went to bed, physically and emotionally exhausted. He slept until eleven; the one convenient aspect of Milly’s father’s timing was that term had ended the day before and he had no need to get up for school.
After waking up, Steve made a careful inventory of the various materials he had removed from Milly’s refrigerator, so that he could amend his own weekend shopping list. Then he drove to the supermarket in order to lay in supplies of his own for what was promising to be a very peculiar Christmas. He knew that if he cared to phone his mother and tell her that his own plans had been rudely disrupted, and that he could make it home after all, he’d be welcomed like the prodigal son he had never actually contrived to be, but he hadn’t the least inclination to do so.
At three o’clock, Alison phoned him. “It’s a bit of a cheek, I know,” she said, “but I couldn’t help overhearing, last night, that you’ll be cooking more food tonight than you can eat. I wondered if I could possibly be of any help—with the cooking as well as the eating, that is. You wouldn’t be in any moral danger.”
“Why do you keep saying that?” Steve asked. “Even when I only had Milly’s uncharitable description of you to go on, I wouldn’t have made any such assumption. Now I’ve met the real you, I certainly wouldn’t make that assumption, so there’s no need to go out of your way to dispel it.”
“Sorry,” Alison said. “I suppose it’s just that if I’d ever done anything like this before, I would be working on that assumption, and I’d probably be able to assume that the person I was calling would be working on it too. I suppose I’m really talking to myself, not you. Is that a no, then?”
“You’d be very welcome to help me make inroads into Milly’s turkey crown and vegetable mountain,” Steve said. “You don’t have to help with the cooking, though. Will it be all right if I cook for seven?”
“Absolutely. Can I come over a little earlier? You don’t have to let me help, but I could pester you with unnecessary conversation and make the job more difficult.”
“As you please,” Steve said.
When Milly phoned him at four Steve told her that he had invited Alison round to help him eat the surplus food—and for that purpose alone—and apologized for not having asked her permission first. Milly said that it was perfectly all right, that he didn’t need her permission, and that she was glad that her food wouldn’t be going to waste.
Alison arrived at half past five, clutching a bottle of Australian Shiraz, and proceeded to delight him with conversation while he shuttled back and forth between his kitchen and the front room, where he’d set up his dining-table.
“Milly never got a chance to tell me what went on at your peace talks on Sunday,” he said—not entirely honestly. “Did it go well? Is harmony in the process of being restored?”
“That depends what would count as harmony,” Alison said. “Milly said sorry about the letter, formally, and I forgave her, formally—after which she assumed that the matter was done and dusted, although I can’t quite remember her adopting the same attitude when the situation was reversed. After that, it was pretty much the Milly and Janine show, with me being expected to serve as referee and mediator. They seem to have patched things up, after a fashion, as they always have when they’ve fallen out in the past, but they can’t really settle it until they’ve decided what to do about you— which they can’t really do on their own, although they certainly tried. I gathered while eavesdropping from the back seat of your car on Thursday that Milly had begun to take tentative steps in the direction of involving you in a settlement, but that’s obviously been postponed. It’s not really my business, mercifully—although they might try to use me as a referee and mediator, once they’re convinced that I won’t make any pathetic attempts to grab you for myself. I don’t want to play mediator, though—mostly because I don’t think there’s any satisfactory solution to the problem.”
“Oh,” Steve said. He’d just about reached the same conclusion himself, but he was slightly disappointed to hear it so casually confirmed.
“From their point of view, that is, not yours,” Alison added, perhaps misunderstanding the import of his oh. “All you’ll have to do, once Janine’s wounded pride has relented to the point of letting her dismiss your fling with Milly as shit happens, is make your choice. Everyone assumes that you’ll choose Janine, although we all know that you’re way too soft-hearted to put the boot into Milly callously, especially with her Dad just having died and all. The future scenario everyone envisages, I think, is that the awkwardness will drag on for a bit longer—maybe a few more weeks—until you and Milly have completed the job of making yourselves and one another thoroughly miserable. Then she’ll consent to be sent packing, with a great show of mutual reluctance, and you’ll be free to get back with Janine, miserably at first but eventually...well, who knows? Milly and Janine might have to part then, but at least they’ll be able to part as friends rather than enemies, and it will make them both feel better.”
Steve could only stare, dumbfounded.
“Sorry,” Alison said. “I know that laying it out like that won’t help cut short the trouble and pain—but that is how it will go, if we three witches have read the future rightly. Did you have some other scenario in mind, perhaps? Better tell me, if you did, so I can do my humble best to steer things in that direction. You do have the choice, you know—and at the end of the day, it would be stupid to stay with Milly just because you couldn’t bear to make yourself look bad by dumping her. Make a song and dance about it, by all means, but don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.”
“Actually,” Steve said, “I’d got the impression that Milly and Janine were building up to the decision that their friendship was too precious to waste over some mere bloke, and that it would be me who would be expelled from the sacred circle.”
“They’ll probably try to convince themselves of that while they’re in the process of making up,” Alison admitted, “but it’ll never go the distance. At the end of the day, they’re just a couple of girls, whose one experiment with lesbianism in their teens only helped to confirm that all three of us are irredeemably straight. You qualify as a real prize, even for Janine. You probably think that you have nothing much to recommend you apart from your pretty-boy looks—being a newly qualified none-too-bright teacher in the second best comprehensive in Salisbury hardly qualifies as potential for a glittering career, and the fear of flying’s a bit of a drawback—but you’re also quite a nice bloke, which most good lookers aren’t, and you’re a bit of a romantic in your own way, which is quite sweet, and you’re relaxed enough around women to be good company whether you’re sleeping with them or not...and I don’t think you quite realize quite how much of an asset the looks are. Trust me, Steve—you will have the choice. You’ll get Janine, even if it means—as it might—that Janine and Milly will have to go their separate ways. They’ll contrive to make that as gracious as possible, if it comes to it, so it won’t rankle too much. They’d be able to manage that even without my help.”
“What about you?” Steve asked, figuring that it was the safest question on offer. “Will you be able to carry on being friends with both of them, if they do split, or will you have to choose?”
“Oh, it seems to me that I can’t possibly
carry on being friends with either of them—but I’ll try to negotiate a parting on good terms too, so that it doesn’t rankle.”
“Why can’t you carry on being friends with them?” Steve asked.
“I could give you a bullshit reason if I wanted to, but as I’m the real me just now, I might as well just admit that they’re too good-looking. I can’t compete. If I continue hanging around with them, and craving their approval, I’ll always be the loser of the group of three—the court jester, there for their amusement and to carry the bags. I don’t want to do that any more. I know it doesn’t reflect well on me to say that from now on I only want to swim in pools where the other fish are no bigger than I am, but I’m twenty-six years old. I have to start making serious preparations for some kind of future. If I’m going to reinvent myself properly, I’ll have to get away from Jan and Mil and all the baggage we carry—but I’ll have to do it in a moderately dignified way. Like Jan and Mil, we’ll need to part as friends rather than enemies, with all outstanding debts settled. It won’t be easy, but I think I can do it. We’ll need at least one more coven-meeting to achieve it, but we’ll need one anyway, because we still have your fate to decide.”
Alien Abduction - The Wiltshire Revelations Page 36
