The Peace Machine

by Bob Shaw

  As his breathing returned to normal Hutchman reached the main road and caught a bus going into the town center. Darkness was falling by the time he got off near the imposing town hall. Store windows were brightly lit and the pavements were crowded with people hurrying home from work. The crisp, pre-Christmas atmosphere brought on another of the unmanning attacks of nostalgia and he found himself thinking about Vicky and David again. Look what you’ve done to me, Vicky.

  He asked a news vendor how to reach the railway station, set out to walk to it, then realized he could not risk going to any transport terminal, and that to consider it had been a dangerous lapse. I wanted to ride home in comfort, sitting in a window seat, humming “Beyond the Blue Horizon”, he thought in astonishment. But I’m the ground zero man, and I can never go home again.

  He walked aimlessly for a while, twice turning into side streets when he saw police uniforms. The problem of getting out of Bolton was doubly urgent. Not only had he to escape from a tightening net, but the deadline he had given to the authorities was drawing closer. He had to journey south and be in Hastings before Antibomb Day. Could he travel in disguise? A flash recollection of Chesterton’s invisible man caused him to halt momentarily. The uniform of a postman would make him effectively invisible, and a rural postman’s traditional transport — a bicycle — would probably get him to Hastings in time. But how did one acquire such things? Stealing them would only serve to make him more easily identifiable…

  In one of the narrow side streets he saw a yellow electric sign of a taxi company, and in the window of the office beneath it was a notice which said: “DRIVERS FOR SAFETY CABS WANTED — NO PSV LICENCE REQUIRED.”

  Hutchman’s heart began to thud as he read the hand-lettered card. A taxi driver was just as invisible as a postman, and a vehicle went with the job! He walked into the dimly-lit garage beside the office. A row of mustard-colored taxis brooded in the half-light and the only evidence of life was the glowing window of a boxlike office in one corner. He tapped the door and opened it. Inside was a cluttered room containing a table and a bench upon which sat two men in mechanic’s overalls. One of them was in the act of raising a cup of tea to his mouth.

  “Sorry to disturb you.” Hutchman put on his best grin. “How do I go about getting a job as a driver?”

  “No trouble about that, mate.” The mechanic turned to his companion, who was unwrapping sandwiches. “Who’s the super tonight?”

  “Old Oliver.”

  “Wait here and I’ll fetch him,” the mechanic said in a friendly tone and Went out through a door which led to the back of the building. Encouraged and gratified, Hutchman studied the little room as he waited. The walls were covered with notices held in place by drawing pins and yellowing Sellotape. “Any driver who is involved in a front-end accident will be dismissed immediately,” one stated. “The following are in bad standing and must not be accepted for credit card journeys,” said another above a list of names. To Hutchman, in his state of intense loneliness, they appeared as indications of a warm, intensely human normalcy. He entertained fantasies of working contentedly in a place like this for the rest of his life if he got away from Hastings in one piece. Getting his job, being accepted into the cheery incidentrich life of a cab driver, assumed an illogical and emotional importance which had nothing to do with escaping to the south.

  “Cold day,” the remaining mechanic said through a mouthful of bread.

  “Certainly is.”

  “Fancy a drop of tea?”

  “No thanks.” Hutchman’s eyes stung with pleasure as he refused the offer. He turned as the door opened and the first mechanic came in accompanied by a stooped, white-haired man of about sixty. The newcomer was pink-faced, had a prim womanly mouth, and was wearing an old-fashioned belted raincoat and a peaked cap.

  “Hello,” Hutchman ventured. “I understand you have openings for drivers.”

  “Happen I have,” Oliver said. “Come out here and I’ll talk to you.” He led the way out to the garage area and closed the office door so that the mechanics would not hear the conversation. “Are you a PSV man?”

  “No, but it said on your notice that…”

  “I know what it said on the notice,” Oliver interrupted pettishly, “but that doesn’t mean we don’t prefer good professional men. These nasty little so-called safety cars with seats looking out the back window have cheapened the whole trade. Cheap and nasty.”

  “Oh.” It dawned on Hutchman that he was dealing with a man who regarded taxi-driving as a calling. “Well, I have a clean ordinary licence.”

  Oliver scrutinized him doubtfully. “Part-timer?”

  “Yes — or full-time. Whatever you want.” Hutchman wondered if he sounded too anxious. “You do need drivers, don’t you?”

  “We don’t pay a wage, you know. You get a third of your take, plus tips. A good man does well out of tips, but a beginner…”

  “That sounds fine. I could start right way.”

  “Just a minute,” Oliver said sternly. “Do you know the town?”

  “Yes.” Hutchman’s heart sank. How could he have forgotten one of the basic requirements?

  “How would you get to Crompton Avenue?”

  “Ah…” Hutchman tried to remember the name of the main road he had driven along with Atwood, the only one he knew. “Straight out to Breightmet.”

  Oliver nodded with some reluctance. “How would you get to Bridgeworth Close?”

  “That’s a tricky one.” Hutchman forced a smile. “It might take me some time to get to know all the streets.”

  “How would you get to Mason Street?” Oliver’s womanly lips were pursed in disapproval.

  “Is that out toward Salford? Look, I told you…”

  “I’m sorry, son. You just haven’t a good enough memory for this kind of work.”

  Hutchman gazed at him in helpless anger, then turned away. Outside, he stared resentfully at the unfamiliar configurations of buildings. He had been rejected. His brain held information which was going to change the entire course of history, but a prissy old fool had looked down on him because he wasn’t familiar with a haphazard pattern of streets in an undistinguished… Pattern! That’s all it was. A man did not have to grow up in a town to get to know its layout if he had the right sort of mental disciplines.

  Glancing at his watch, Hutchman found it was only a little after 5:30. He hurried to the nearest main thoroughfare, located a large stationery store, and bought two street maps of Bolton and a white correcting pencil. While he was paying for them he asked the sales assistant where he could find a copying service still open. The girl directed him to a place two blocks further along the same street. He thanked her, went outside, and shouldered his way through the crowds, reaching the office-equipment supplier, who did copying, just as an unseen clock was chiming the hour. A dapper young man with wispy fair hair was locking the door. He shook his head when Hutchman tried the handle. Hutchman took two five-pound notes from his pocket and pushed them through the low-level letter slot. The young man picked them up cautiously, studied Hutchman through the glass for a second, then opened the door a little.

  “We close at six, you know.” He held the notes out tentatively.

  “Those are yours,” Hutchman told him.

  “What for?”

  “Overtime payment. I have an urgent copying job which must be done right now. I’ll pay for it separately, but that tenner’s for you — if you’ll do the work.”

  “Oh! Oh, well then. You’d better come in.” The youth gave a baffled laugh and opened the door wide. “Christmas is early this year, I must say.”

  Hutchman unfolded one of his street maps. “Can you handle a sheet this size?”

  “With ease.” The youth activated a gray machine and watched with perplexity as Hutchman took out the typist’s correcting pencil and, working at careless speed, obliterated all the street names. When he had finished he handed the map over. “Do me… mmm… a dozen copies of that.”

 
; “Yes, sir.” The young man stared solemnly at Hutchman as he worked.

  “I’m in advertising,” Hutchman said. “This is for a marketresearch project.”

  Ten minutes later he was back out on the street with a warm roll of sheets under his arm. He now had all the equipment needed to carry out the type of memory blitz he had perfected in his university days, but there was still the problem of finding a quiet and secure place in which to work. The soothing effect of constructive activity abated slightly as it came to him that he was going to a great deal of trouble to get out of Bolton without having checked that it was really necessary. He saw a small newsagent’s shop on the opposite side of the street and crossed over to it. While still in the middle of the roadway he read the billboard which was leaning against a window sill.

  It said: “POLICE CORDON SEALS OFF BOLTON!”

  A number of copies of the evening paper were clipped to a wire rack in the doorway. He approached the shop and saw that a large photograph of himself was featured on the front page, with splash headlines which read: “BOLTON SURROUNDED BY POLICE CORDON. Mystery mathematician traced here today.” Hutchman decided not to risk going in and buying a paper — he had learned all he needed, anyway. He was turning away from the shop when a white Porsche drew up beside him and the passenger door was pushed open. The driver was an Oriental-looking girl in a silver dress.

  “It’s warmer at my place,” she said, showing no trace of embarrassment over the fact that she sounded exactly the way a prostitute was supposed to sound.

  Hutchman, who had been poised to flee, shook his head instinctively then caught the edge of the door. “Perhaps I am a little cold.” He got into the car, which smelled of leather and perfume, and was accelerated smoothly and expensively into the clustered lights of the town center.

  He turned sideways to face the girl. “Where are we going?”

  “Not far.”

  Hutchman nodded contentedly. He was satisfied as long as she did not try to take him out of town, through a roadblock. “Have you any food at your place?”

  “No.”

  “Aren’t you hungry?”

  “Starving — but I don’t run a soup kitchen.” Her neat face was hard.

  Hutchman snorted, took a ten-pound note from his pocket, and dropped it on her lap. “Stop at a take-away and get us some food.”

  “I’m a working girl, mister.” She flicked the note back at him. “The rate is exactly the same for companionship.”

  “That’s understood — your name isn’t Melina Mercouri. How much for the night?”

  “A hundred,” Her voice was defiant.

  “A hundred it is.” Hutchman peeled off ten more notes, amazed at the fact that they still held value for other people. “Here’s the hundred, plus the food money. All right?”

  For an answer she put her hand on his thigh and slid it into his crotch. He endured her touch without speaking. I could kill you, Vicky. The girl stopped at a snack bar, ran into it, and emerged with an armful of packages which smelt of roast chicken. She drove him to a small apartment block about ten minutes from the town center. Hutchman carried the food while she let herself in, and they went to a first-floor flat. It was simply furnished with white walls, white carpet, and a black ceiling in the main room.

  “Food first?” the girl said.

  “Food first.” Hutchman spread the packages on the table, opened them, and began to eat while his hostess was making coffee in a clinically bright kitchen. He was tired and nervous — pictures of a human eye rolling in the dust flickered before him — but the heat was helping him to relax. They ate in near silence and the girl cleared the remains into the kitchen. On her way back she slipped out of the silver dress with a single lithe movement, revealing that she was wearing a crimson satin bikini suit which, along with a certain muscularity of thighs, gave her the air of a trapeze artist. Her spice-coloured body was trim and taut and desirable. Hutchman’s groin turned to ice.

  “Listen,” he said, lifting his roll of ammonia-smelling sheets. “I have some very urgent business to attend to for my firm, and I won’t be able to relax until it’s out of the way. Why don’t you watch television for a while?”

  “I haven’t got television.”

  Hutchman realized he had made a mistake in suggesting it — he was bound to be in the news more than ever. “Play music or read a book, then. All right?”

  “All right.” The girl shrugged unconcernedly and, without dressing again, lay down on a couch and watched him.

  Hutchman spread out a street map, the one which still showed the names, and began memorizing it, starting with the major roads and filling in as much as possible on side streets. He worked with maximum concentration for one hour, then took a blank copy, and tried filling in the names. This gave him an accurate indication of the areas in which he was doing well and of the ones — still a great majority at this stage — where his performance was poor. He returned to the named map, spent a second hour on it, did another progress check with a blank map, and started the process all over again. Some time during the course of the evening the girl fell asleep and began snoring gently. She woke with a start around midnight, gazing at Hutchman without recognition for an instant.

  He smiled at her. “This is taking longer than I expected. Why don’t you go to bed?”

  “Do you want coffee?”

  “No, thanks.”

  The girl got to her feet, shivering, gathered her silver dress from the floor and walked into the bedroom with a curious glance at his array of maps. Hutchman went back to work. It was almost three o’clock by the time he finally managed to fill in a complete map, and by then he too was shivering. The central heating had been off for hours. He lay down on the couch and tried to sleep, but the room was becoming intensely cold and his head was bursting with hundreds of street names. Each time he closed his eyes he saw networks of black lines, and occasionally a redblotched eye rolled across them. After half an hour he went into the bedroom. The girl was asleep in the center of an outsize bed. Hutchman undressed, got in beside her, and placed one hand on her up-thrust hip, feeling the edge of the pelvic basin and the belly warmth under his fingertips. In that respect, in the darkness, she could have been Vicky.

  He fell asleep instantly.

  At the first light of morning he got up without disturbing the girl, dressed quickly, and went back to the table in the main room. As he had expected, when he tried to fill in a map there were several new areas of uncertainty. He spent several minutes revising them and quietly left the apartment. It was a gray, dry morning, surprisingly mild for the time of year. He decided to walk into the town center, amusing himself as he went by accurately predicting the names of the streets he reached. The crammed knowledge of the town’s layout was of the most transient kind and would be virtually gone inside a week, but he would have it long enough to get him through any quiz which might take place that morning. He reached the taxi company’s headquarters without seeing any police. This time he went into the outer office and spoke to a bespectacled girl who had several telephones and a microphone on her desk.

  “Is Oliver on duty?”

  “No — he’s on the late shift this week. Was it personal?”

  Hutchman was encouraged. “No, not personal. I’m a good driver and I know Bolton like the back of my hand.”

  Forty minutes later he had been issued with a “uniform”, which consisted of an engraved steel-lapel badge and a peaked cap, and was cruising through the town in a mustard-coloured taxi. For the best part of an hour he genuinely worked as a cabdriver, making two pickups to which he was directed by radio and locating the destinations without much difficulty. The second one left him on the south side of the town and instead of returning to his waiting station he radioed the office.

  “This is Walter Russell,” he said, using the name with which he had signed on. “I’ve just picked up a gentleman who wants to spend the day touring the countryside around Bolton. What’s the procedure?”

&n
bsp; “The daily rate is forty pounds,” the girl replied. “Payable in advance. Is that satisfactory to your customer?”

  Hutchman waited a moment. “He says that’s fine.”

  “All right — call in when you are free again.”

  “Right.” Hutchman replaced the microphone. Having decided that the limited-speed taxicab might look out of place on the motorways, he drove due south for Warrington with the intention of traveling down England on the more homely linking roads. A short distance ahead of him he saw three teenage girls standing at the roadside thumbing a ride. They glanced at each other in consternation when he pulled up beside them and operated the lever which opened the passenger door.

  “Where are you heading for?” he called, trying to sound benevolent in spite of his growing tension over the road-block he sensed must be close by.

  “Birmingham,” one of the girls said, “but we’ve no money for a taxi.”

  “You don’t need money for this taxi.”

  “What do you need, then?” another girl demanded, and her companions giggled.

  Oh, God, Hutchman thought. “Look, I’m going down to Ringway Airport to meet a customer. I offered you the free seats, but if you don’t want them that’s all right with me.” He made as if to close the door and the girls screamed and tumbled into the aft-facing seats. When the car was moving again they talked among themselves as though Hutchman did not exist, and he gathered they were on their way to a Damascus demonstration. He discovered, with a dull sense of surprise, that he had not thought about Damascus for days. That he no longer really cared about the ruined city and its indomitable seven-year-olds who would never see eight. It was a personal thing now. A triangle. Vicky and he and the antibomb machine.

  There was a lengthy queue of cars at the police road-block, but the uniformed men glanced only once at the taxi and its occupants, and signaled Hutchman to drive on.