Fugue for a Darkening Island

by Christopher Priest

  There was more movement outside and a voice made an order. The man with the rifle withdrew from the tent. I heard the soldiers drive away.

  I cried.

  In addition to the pain from my ankle, I was experiencing a growing feeling of nausea. My head ached. I was able to take only one step at a time, pausing to recover my strength. In spite of my discomfort I was able to observe my environment, and registered surprise at what I saw.

  Within a few hundred yards of the barricade I found myself in suburban streets which, because of their façade of normality, appeared strange to me.

  Several cars drove along the streets, and the houses were occupied and in good repair. I saw a couple sitting in easy-chairs in a garden, and they looked at me curiously. The man was reading a newspaper which I recognized as being the _Daily Mail_. It was as if I had been transported somehow to a period two years before.

  At an intersection with a larger road I saw more traffic, and a corporation bus. I waited for a lull in the traffic before attempting to cross the road. I managed it with great difficulty, having to pause half-way across to rest. When I reached the far side the nausea grew to a point where I was forced to vomit. A small group of children regarded me from a near-by garden, and one of them ran into a house.

  As soon as I was able I limped on.

  I had no idea where I was heading. Perspiration was running down my body, and soon I retched again. I came across a wooden seat on the side of the road and rested there for a few minutes. I felt utterly weakened.

  I passed through a shopping precinct where there were many people drifting from one store to another. I was disoriented again by the outward normality of the streets. For many months I had not known any place where there were shops, where it was possible to find goods available for purchase.

  Most shopping areas I had seen had been looted or under strict military control.

  At the end of the row of shops I halted once again, suddenly aware how unusual I must look to these people. Already I had earned several curious stares. I estimated that I had left the barricade an hour and a half before, and that the time now would be around five or six in the evening. I realized how tired I was, in addition to the other symptoms I was experiencing.

  Because of my dirty clothes, my unkempt hair, my unshaven face, my two months' odour of dried perspiration and urine, my limp and the flecks of vomit on my shirt, I felt unable to approach any of these people.

  The pain from my leg was now almost beyond bearing. I became obsessed with the thought that I was an offensive spectacle to the people, and turned off into a side-road at the first opportunity. I carried on as long as I could, but my weakness was overwhelming. A hundred yards from the turning I fell to the ground for the second time that day, and lay helplessly. I closed my eyes.

  In a while, I became aware of voices around me and I was lifted gently to my feet.

  A soft bed. Cool sheets. A body cleaned with a bathful of hot water. A painful leg and foot. A picture on a wall; photographs of smiling people on a dresser. Discomfort in my stomach. Someone else's pyjamas. A doctor winding a bandage around my ankle. A glass of water at my side. Comforting words. Sleep.

  I learned that their names were Mr. and Mrs. Jeffery. His first name was Charles; hers was Enid. He had been a bank manager, but was now retired. I estimated their ages as being in the middle or late sixties. They were remarkably incurious about me, though I told them I had come from outside the town. I said nothing of Sally or Isobel.

  They told me I could stay as long as I wished, but at least until my leg had healed.

  Mrs. Jeffery brought me all the food I could eat. Fresh meat, eggs, vegetables, bread, fruit. At first I registered surprise, saying that I thought they were impossible to obtain. She told me that the local shops had regular supplies of groceries, and could not understand why I had thought this.

  "Food is so expensive though, dear," she said to me. "I can hardly keep up with the price-rises."

  I asked her why she thought prices had increased.

  "It's the times changing. Not like they were when I was younger. My mother used to be able to get bread at a penny a loaf. But there's nothing I can do about it, so I just pay up and try not to think about it."

  She was marvellous to me. There was nothing that was too much to ask of her. She brought me newspapers and magazines, and Mr. Jeffery gave me cigarettes and some Scotch whisky. I read the journals eagerly, hoping they would be able to give me some information on the present social and political scene. The newspaper was the _Daily Mail_ and was, as Mrs. Jeffery told me without any apparent surprise, the only one available at the moment. Its editorial content was mainly foreign news and photographs. There was no mention anywhere of the civil war. There were very few advertisements, and those were in the main for consumer-goods. I noticed that the price was thirty pence, that there were only four pages, that it was printed twice a week and that it was published from an address in Northern France. I passed on none of these observations to the Jefferys.

  The rest and comfort allowed me time to think more objectively of the situation. I realized that I had been concerned mainly with my personal life, and had given no thought to what our long-term prospects would be. Though I fretted mentally at my inactivity, I recognized that it would serve no useful purpose to move until my ankle had healed.

  The questions were the same whether or not I was able to find Isobel and Sally. In my unwitting role as refugee I had of necessity played a neutral role. But it seemed to me that it would be impossible for this to continue in the future. I could not stay uncommitted for ever.

  In what I had seen of the activities and outlook of the Secessionist forces, it had always appeared to me that they adopted a more humanitarian attitude to the situation. It was not morally right to deny the African immigrants an identity or a voice. The war must be resolved one way or another in time, and it was now inevitable that the Africans would stay in Britain permanently.

  On the other hand, the extreme actions of the Nationalist side, which stemmed initially from the conservative and repressive policies of Tregarth's government (an administration I had distrusted and disliked) appealed to me on an instinctive level. It had been the Afrims who had directly deprived me of everything I had once owned.

  Ultimately, I knew the question depended on my finding Isobel. If she and Sally had not been harmed my instincts would be quieted.

  I could not directly contemplate the consequences of the alternative.

  I felt the dilemma was largely of my own sponsorship . . . had I been able to come to grips with it earlier, I would not now be in this position. On a personal, practical level I could see that whatever future there was for us, it would not be one in which we could settle until the larger issues around us were resolved.

  On the third day at the Jefferys' I was able to get up and move around the house. I had trimmed my beard, and Enid had washed and repaired my clothes. As soon as I was mobile I wanted to pursue my search for Isobel and Sally, but my ankle still pained me when I walked.

  I helped Charles with light tasks in the garden and spent several hours in conversation with him.

  I was continually surprised by the lack of awareness displayed by both him and his wife. When I spoke of the civil war, he referred to it as if it were a thousand miles away. Remembering the injunction given to me by the man at the barricade not to speak of the Afrims, I was cautious about discussing the politics involved. But Charles Jeffery was not interested in them. As far as he was aware, the government was dealing with a difficult social problem but that the solution would be found in the end.

  Several jet aircraft flew over the house during the day, and in the evenings we would hear distant explosions. None of us mentioned them.

  The Jefferys had a television set which I watched with them on the evening of the third day, fascinated to learn that the service had been restored.

  The style of presentation was similar to that which had once been adopted by the BBC, and
in fact the station identification was given as that.

  The content of the programmes was largely American. There was one short news-bulletin in the middle of the evening, which touched on issues local to the south-coast towns, making no mention of the civil war. All the programmes were pre-recorded, and consisted in the main of light entertainment.

  I asked the Jefferys from where the programmes were transmitted, and they told me that they were part of a closed-circuit wire system, broadcast from Worthing.

  On the fourth day I felt that my ankle had healed sufficiently to allow me to move on. I had a growing restlessness in me, emphasized by a feeling that I was being seduced by the friendly comfort of the Jefferys' house. I could not believe it to be real, but thought of it as an artificial restoration of normal life in an abnormal state. The Jefferys would be incapable of appreciating this, and I said nothing of it to them. I was genuinely grateful for what they had done for me, and while they were able to maintain their illusion of normality I wanted to have no part in breaking it.

  I left them in the late morning, knowing that I could never fully express either to myself or to them what the short stay had done for me. I headed for the coast road.

  I encountered no difficulty at the barricade. The men who guarded it were unable to understand why I wished to leave the town, but once I had made it clear to them that I genuinely wished to leave, they allowed me through. I told them that I may be returning later in the day, but they warned me it would not be as easy to re-enter as it had been to leave.

  I walked for two miles through what had been suburban streets. All the houses were empty and several had been damaged or destroyed. I saw no civilians.

  On several occasions I met small groups of Afrim soldiers, but I was not accosted.

  At midday I entered an empty house to eat the beef sandwiches and salad which Mrs. Jeffery had given me. I drank the flask of tea, and washed it out afterwards, realizing that it might be useful in the future.

  I went down to the beach and walked along it until I came to the place where I had found the bungalow with the makings for petrol-bombs. Out of curiosity I entered the bungalow and looked for the bombs, but they had been taken.

  I moved on down to the beach. I sat on the pebbles.

  Half an hour later, a youth walked along the shore and approached me. We engaged in conversation. He told me of a large group of refugees about eight miles to the east who had commandeered a ship and who were planning to sail to France. He invited me to join him. I asked him if the group were armed, and he told me they were.

  We spoke for a while of the Afrims, and the youth told me that this had once been a garrison town but that their organization was not good. Though there were still many hundreds of black troops here, they were ill-controlled and undisciplined. I asked him if he knew anything of the reputed Afrim brothel, and he confirmed its existence. He said there was a large turnover of women, and that the Afrims had no compunction about murdering those who would not co-operate.

  He told me that the brothel was less than half a mile from where we were, and that he would take me to it if I wished.

  I thanked him, but turned down his offer. In a while he left me, giving me detailed instructions on how to find the group who had the vessel. I told him that if I was going to join them I would be there by the next evening.

  I waited until he had disappeared from my sight before I moved off in the same direction.

  I walked slowly towards where the youth had said the brothel was situated. This necessitated leaving the shore and walking up into the streets of the town. There were many more Africans in this neighbourhood and I discovered that I was not going to be able to get near the building. I tried approaching it from several directions, but each time I was stopped and told to move away.

  Tiredness was growing in me, and I returned to the shore. I sat down on the pebbles and looked at the sea.

  There was much crude oil on the water, and in many places the beach was covered in thick black sludge.

  The silence appalled me. There were no sea-birds, and the oily waves that broke on the shore were sluggish and without foam. The tide was receding.

  Far out to sea there was a large warship, but I was unable to determine what type or nationality it was.

  My attention was first drawn to the bodies by the presence of a squad of Afrim soldiers, who moved down to the beach about a quarter of a mile from me, then returned to the town. I stood up.

  As I walked, my feet were continually sucked by the thick layer of oil on the pebbles. The bodies were not easy to see, and had I not known they were there, from a distance I would have mistaken them for large pieces of congealed oil. They were all black and there were seventeen of them. They were naked, and all but one of them were female. The blackness of the skin was not that of natural pigmentation or of oil, but of paint or pitch. I moved amongst them, soon finding Isobel and Sally.

  I noticed no reaction in me. Later, I felt a sadness, and later than that a disturbing combination of terror and hatred.

  I slept that night on the beach. In the morning I murdered a young African and stole his rifle, and by the afternoon I was again in the countryside.