His eyes were glowing; there seemed to be new life in him. Bush wondered
what had passed between Mrs. Annivale and him on that occasion.
Here were the images of violence and hate again, from which he was never
free. What had this rape to do with his father's recollections of his mother?
Was it all a fantasy his father had invented to express his lusts, his
aggressiveness, his hatred of women, his fear? It was all a puzzle he
never wanted to solve; nor was the ancient tabu against talking sex with
his father resolved just because his father was already partly drunk;
but he saw that perhaps he had not been the only person to have been
shut out from his mother's love. He wanted to hear nothing more, longed
for the claustrophobic silences of the long past.
When he got up, his father recollected himself.
"Men are like animals," he said. "Bloody animals!"
Once there had been a tabu against arguing with his father. That at least
had died where the lobe fins crawled, or some dim place where he had been
in retreat from his own life.
"I never heard of an animal commiting rape, Father. That's man's prerogative!
Reproduction was a neutral act, like eating or sleeping or peeing, when it
was left to the animals. But in man's hands he's twisted it to mean anything
he wants -- an instrument of love, an instrument of hate . . ."
His father drained his glass, set it down, and said coldly, "You are afraid
of it, aren't you? Sex, I mean. You always were, weren't you?"
"Not at all. You're projecting your fears onto me. But would it be strange
if I was, considering the way you used to scoff at me as a kid whenever
I brought a girl home?"
"Good old Ted, never forget a grudge, just like your mother!"
"And you must have been pretty afraid of it too, eh, or wouldn't you have
chanced your arm and given me some brothers and sisters?"
"You should have asked your mother about that side of things."
"Ha! Those loved accents are not soon forgot, are they? Christ, what a
trio we are!"
"Twosome -- only you and me now, and you'll have to be patient with me."
"No, a trio still! It takes more than death to get rid of memories,
doesn't it?"
"Memories are all I possess now, son -- I'm no mind-traveler, able to live
in the past. . . . I've got another bottle upstairs, just for emergencies."
James Bush rose and shuffled out of the room. His son followed helplessly.
They went up through the dark at the top of the stairs into the tiny
sitting room, which smelled rather damp.
The dentist switched on the electric fire. "We've got a hole in the roof.
Don't touch the ceiling or the plaster may come down. It'll dry off in
the summer, and I'll try and fix it. Things are very difficult. Perhaps
you'll lend a hand if you're still around."
He brought out a whole bottle of whisky, more than three-quarters full.
They had carried their glasses upstairs with them. They sat down on
moldering chairs and grinned at each other. James Bush winked. "To the
ruddy old human race!" he said. "A man's a man for a' that!" They drank up.
"We're ruled by a man called General Peregrine Bolt. It seems he's not
a bad man as dictators go. Got a lot of popular support. At least he keeps
the streets quiet at night."
"No more rapes?"
"Don't let's start on that again."
"What has Bolt done to the Institute?"
"It's prospering, by all accounts. Of course, I know nothing. It's nothing
to do with me. It's run on more military lines, I hear."
"I ought to report. I'll go first thing tomorrow, or they'll sack me."
"You're not going back into the past again? The new government will
organize all that. Now there are so many people mind-traveling, crime
rates are rising back there. Two fellows got murdered in the Permian
last week, so the grocer told Mrs. Annivale. General Bolt has set up a
Mind-Travel Police Patrol to keep order."
"It's orderly enough. I didn't see any crime. A few thousand people
spread over millions of years -- what harm can it do?"
"People don't stay spread, do they? Still, if you are bent on going back,
I can't stop you. Why don't you settle down here and do some more groupages
and that, make some real money? Your stuff's all in the studio. You can
live here."
Bush shook his head. He couldn't talk about his work. The drink was making
his neck throb again. His ear ached. Perhaps what he most wanted was a good
sleep. At least he could do that here; there seemed to be few invasions of
his father's privacy.
Just as he settled his glass down on the wide arm of his chair, there
was a thunderous knocking at the front door.
"It says 'Ring and Walk In' clearly enough, doesn't it?"
But his father had gone pale. "That's no patient. It's probably the military.
We'd better go and see. Ted, you come down too, won't you? It may be for you.
I haven't done anything. I'll just hide this bottle under the chair.
They're getting very anti-black market, damn them! What can they want?
I've done nothing. I hardly ever go out . . ."
Muttering, he went downstairs with Bush close behind him. The peremptory
hammering came again before they were down. Bush pushed past his father
into the waiting room and went and flung the front door open.
Two armed men in uniform stood on the step. They wore steel helmets
and looked far from peaceful. A truck waited behind them in the street,
its engine running noisily.
"Edward Lonsdale Bush?"
"That's me. What do you want?"
"Failure to report to Wenlock Institute after over-staying term of
mind-travel. You're in trouble and you'll have to come along with us."
"Look, Sergeant, I'm on my way to the Institute now!"
"Short cut, is it? You've been boozing -- smell it a yard off! Come on!"
He reached back and grabbed his pack off the magazine-strewn table.
"My notes are all here. I tell you, I'm on my way -- "
"No arguing, or we'll charge you with riot and you'll find yourself
looking at the wrong end of a firing squad. Quick march!"
He looked round despairingly, but his father had shrunk back into the gloom
and was not to be seen. They ushered Bush down the path, past the crumbling
brick wall where the rape had been committed, hustled him into the waiting
truck, and shut the door on him. The truck moved away.
Chapter 5
A NEW MAN AT THE INSTITUTE
He found it odd that on the journey he did not waste his time in tension
but instead thought lovingly of his father. The old boy had his back
against the wall, was to be pitied. His days of dubious power were over;
now the situation was reversed -- or, would be if Bush ever got back to
that dingy little house.
Although family grievances were irreparable, that very fact meant that
there were unaccountable lulls between the storms, lulls full of the best
peace of all, the peace of indifference, when all the horrid things had
been said. That was like the incest theme which was popularly supposed
to underlie all family quarrels: a mixture of the forbidden best and
sweetest and the worst.
He started to think about his mother's death then, testing his reactions.
He was still at it when the truck drew to a violent halt and he slid along
the bench and landed with a smack against the rear doors. They were flung
open, and he half-tumbled out.
While his hands were still on the ground, before he had straightened up
between his captors, he took in the dreary surroundings behind the truck.
They had driven through a barrier, now closing again, set in a high
concrete wall. There were guards rigid at the gate and lounging at a
couple of shacks that stood under the wall. The ground, as if recently
cleared, was littered with rubble.
The two soldiers led him round past the truck and towards an entrance in a
large but unimposing building. With disbelief, Bush recognized it as the
Wenlock Institute.
The confusion latent in anyone's mind who has moved between different times
and experienced yesterday as tomorrow and tomorrow as yesterday sprang up
and overwhelmed him. For a while, he could not believe he was in the
right year. The Institute had stood in a quiet side street, with a car
park on one side of it, and buildings on the other side and opposite it;
it had faced across to an insurance office which had done good business
with mind-travelers.
He was marched into the Institute before he had the simple answer.
Under the regime of the worthy General Peregrine Bolt, the Institute had
been advanced in status; his father had told him that. They had simply
demolished the rest of the street and built a wall about the premises,
so that the Institute could now be easily defended and everyone who
entered or left could be accounted for.
Inside, the Institute had changed very little. Indeed, it seemed to have
entered on a period of prosperity; the lighting was better, the flooring
improved; closed-circuit television had been installed, its bowls
transmitting colored messages steadily. The reception desk had been greatly
extended -- there were now four uniformed men behind it. The boredom
and unease generated by their uniform did more to transform the once
unpretentious atmosphere than all the other alterations.
The guards presented a scrap of paper. A uniformed receptionist talked
into a silenced phone. They all waited. Finally, the receptionist nodded,
hung up, and said "Room 3." The guards marched Bush over to Room 3 --
a cubicle on the main corridor -- and left him.
The room was empty except for two chairs. Bush stood in the middle of the
room, clutching his pack, listening. It seemed as if he had got off lightly;
all the horrors he had had in mind, the punches in the teeth, the kicks
in the testicles, those characteristic gestures of a totalitarian regime,
receded a little. Perhaps his captors had merely had orders to deliver
him here as speedily as possible to make his report. He hoped Howells
was still here; Howells always took his report and -- Bush had recognized
the symptoms long ago -- secretly admired and envied him.
Anxiety made him breathe fast and shallowly. The room was like a little
box, and they were keeping him waiting a suspiciously long time.
He would be in trouble. If only they would not mention the year he had
over-stayed -- if they could understand he had meant to come back,
to work properly, to report. He was their star minder.
Or -- his brain ran along another track -- if it wasn't old Howells
but a new man, who did not know he had over-stayed his allotted period.
But a new man . . . a totalitarian . . . one of Bolt's men . . .
Knowing absolutely nothing about the current political situation beyond
the few words his father had dropped, Bush began to weave a terrible plot
in his head, in which he was subjected to brutality and in his turn
inflicted humiliation on others. It was as if, with the passing of
his mother, his mind had to find other complications to stuff itself
with. Recent events, the brush with Lenny's gang, the unexpected blow
from Stein, the shock of finding how Borrow had so effortlessly achieved
what he hoped to do, the news that his mother was dead by some months,
were too much for him. He feared he could endure nothing more.
Sinking back onto a corner chair, Bush took his head in his hands and
let the universe thump and rock about him.
Indescribable things rushed through him. As though galvanized by a shock,
he jumped up, rigid. The flimsy door was open and a messenger stood there.
Something was the matter with Bush's eyes; he could not make the man out
clearly.
"Do you want me to make my report now?" Bush asked, jumping forward.
"Yes, if you'll follow me."
They took the elevator up to the second floor, where Bush usually went to
report. A macabre terror gripped him, a premonition of great ill. It seemed
to him that the very interior of the Institute had altered in some way,
its perspectives and shadows grown more inhuman, its elevators more cruel,
while the metal grill of the elevator closed over Bush like fangs. He was
sweating when he leaped out into the upper corridor.
"Am I seeing Reggie Howells?"
"Howells? Who's Howells? He doesn't work here any more. I've never heard
of him."
The report room looked as he recalled it, except for the telebowl and
one or two additional installations which gave it a sly and watchful
atmosphere. There were chairs on either side of the table, report pads,
the speech-picture humming idly in one corner. Bush was still standing
there, clenching and unclenching his fists, when Franklin entered.
Franklin had been Howells' deputy; he was a porky, pale man with goosey
flesh and poor eyesight. His eyes swam behind little steel-rimmed glasses.
Not a prepossessing man, and Bush recalled now that he had never much
liked the man or tried to ingratiate himself with him. He greeted him
rather effusively now -- it was an unexpected relief to see anyone he
knew, even Franklin. Franklin looked puffier, bigger -- a foot taller.
"Sit down and make yourself comfortable, Mr. Bush. Put your pack down."
"I'm sorry I didn't report at once, but my mother -- "
"Yes. The Institute is being run more efficiently than when you were last
here. In the future, you will report here
directly
you return to the
present. As long as you obey the rules you can come to no harm. Get it?"
"Yes, quite, I see. I'll remember. I hear Reggie Howells has left.
So the messenger was telling me."
Franklin looked at him and closed his eyes slightly. "Howells was shot,
to tell you the truth."
Bush could not exactly say why, but it was the phrase "to tell you the
truth" that upset him; it was too colloquial to follow the content of the
rest of the sentence. He decided it might be safer not to say anything
more on the subject of Howells; at the same time, he concluded that the
most ill-advised thing he could possibly do would be what he most desired:
to bust Franklin one on his piggy nose.
To hide his confusion, he put his shabby old pack on the table and
started to unzip it.
"I'll open that," Franklin said, pulling the pack towards him. He pushed
it under a machine by his right hand, looked at a panel above it, grunted,
and ripped it open, tipping its contents out between them. Together,
they eyed the poor bric-a-brac that had accompanied Bush over such a
great span of time.