Out of Time (23 page)

Randolph used his spare days to disappear alone into the wilderness, laying traps, returning with rabbit or game. His intimacy with nature and its extravagant growth, its burgeoning life and rhythm, gave him a singular individuality. Some evenings he spent in the carving shed where Joe often joined him. They worked quietly together, absorbed in their separate tasks. Randolph made furniture, decorating it with elaborate patterns while Joe, having with surprising speed graduated from small animals, created larger objects, some representational, others abstract. The latter were regarded with curiosity but not without interest. One wooden sculpture, a long smooth burnished curve tapering towards the sky like an ascending bird, was given place of honour in the centre of the kitchen table, a symbol of the community’s hopes.

These odd days of leisure failed to satisfy Joe. He needed longer, a time for consideration and consolidation, away from the constant company of the group and the unrelenting work ethic. And he wanted to be alone with Kathryn. A pointedly casual question to Meredith about the time it would take to reach the coast bore fruit. It was suggested that Joe and Kathryn, ostensibly to obliterate her experiences at the salt mine, go for sea salt; or at least dig pans for collecting crystals in early autumn.

They set off on foot one morning as the dew was lifting. It was the fecund period before high summer. The trees were in full bloom, flowers tumbled out of hedgerows and spread with abandonment at their feet. They headed west on an overgrown track, one of the many, Kathryn explained, crossing the country in an intricate network. These had been used in the old days by travellers as they traded from village to village. Most were now reclaimed by the wilderness but some were still serviceable.

Joe was not unfamiliar with the route they were taking, not unfamiliar that is with the route as he had known it in his world; but here it was without roads, buildings or signs. There was nothing to guide them but the sun setting in the west and the planets travelling over the night sky. They passed ruined villages and land that bore the marks of having once been cultivated, field boundaries still plain to see, patches of wild corn and oats self-seeded, keeping to the rhythm of their year.

It took them several leisurely days to reach the western scarp where the land fell sharply. Joe pointed to the Welsh mountains shadowed in the distance, the cradle of the drug that had destroyed the old life. It was here that they came across a path, clearly in use, the ground flattened, free of intruding growth. They followed it cautiously, curious to see where it led.

‘Another township?” Joe suggested.

Kathryn shook her head and led him on, as far as a high brick wall heavily defended by jagged glass. Keeping close they reached a spiked, wrought iron gate which revealed an extensive, rough grassy area and a tall four-storied building almost obscured by trees. Its facade was as grim as a prison’s. In the distance a group of what were clearly young people were doing exercises in perfect unison, ‘arms up, down to the sides, jog on your toes, one, two, three.’

Kathryn pulled him away.

‘What is it?’ Joe found the house threatening and without goodwill.

‘It’s where the state brings up children, turns them step by step into dangerous people, spies and informers. I’ve always wondered where it was. Let’s get away. I feel infected.’

Even when they had put considerable distance between themselves and the house its grim presence haunted them. But the day was glorious and their absorption in each other absolute. They spent the night under a hedge and looked at the stars.

They travelled next day under a blue sky and reached the heights above the river Severn snaking between the hills. No path led down to the valley floor but they scrambled down, through thickets of bramble and hawthorn, startling red squirrels, foxes, feral goats who scuttled out of the way, disturbed by these unusual visitors. Large tracts of marsh, wet and impassable, sent them back to the hill track and on to Bristol which, once a settlement of some size, was now a heap of ruins. Joe remembered the visit he had so recently made in his own world, prospecting a place at the university. He had loved the hills, the buildings, the river busy with the traffic of boats and ships, he sensed that this was a town where things happened. He wanted to be part of it and wistfully hoped to take up the offer of a place if he got the right grades and could manage the finance.

Now it was nothing but a sad memorial. He led Kathryn to where he thought the Clifton Suspension Bridge crossed the river, over what in this world was a wild, untamed and noisy torrent between the cliffs. Standing among the wooded wilderness in which fallen trees festooned with moss, honeysuckle and ivy grew as far as the cliff edge and cascaded down, made it difficult to describe nature built on and subdued.

He had a vivid memory of standing when very young in the middle of the bridge and peering down into the gorge, wondering how it was possible to build at this height without the support of pillars. He was nervous of the swaying motion, hoping the bridge would not give way. He walked backwards and forwards until his mother tiredly coaxed him away but the wonder of it never left him.

They once again made the descent to the river and were able to cross on a perilous, half-submerged causeway. Mud banks either side housed feeding flocks of waders, a bird-watcher’s paradise. Turning south they found themselves in kinder country, travelling through Glastonbury, Yeovil, Dorchester, names Joe knew well; but the ruins they passed bore no relation to the places he had known. It was as though that world were layered on this, possible to touch if only he knew how. Could he put his hand out and find it? Was it tangible? Did it inhabit the same space in the universe, part of the ground he was treading? The wild possibilities yielded no answer.

The forested country opening before them looked impenetrable but they found a route amid well spaced trees, over territory that had suffered forest fires and was sprouting new brambles and purple flowers. This was wolf country. They heard packs baying in the distance and at night slept by a fire. One morning they came on a herd of short, shaggy ponies.

‘Why do you never use horses?’ Joe asked

‘We used to but now we don’t go anywhere. And they need fodder in the winter.’

From high hills they saw the beckoning sea between green downs, in the distance flecks of moving white.

‘Swans,’ Kathryn said. ‘Abbotsbury,’ Joe thought.

They waded across marshland and reached the sea as the sun was setting. This was their goal and their nirvana. They made camp on the beach in the shelter of the western cliffs, they lived in the open, on sand dunes Joe had known, in the generous bay familiar from childhood holidays but now untrammelled, ringed with sea, sky and the folding hills. And peace, utter peace. They spent their days swimming, fishing, building sandcastles swept away daily by the tide; they collected shells among the rocks, they walked to Lulworth Cove over the downs, they bathed in its narrow creek, they explored Chesil Bay and the causeway to Portland Bill. They were children, they were adults. They sang sad and happy songs, they made love with only the birds and burrowing creatures to watch them.

*

The days go by. The usual drudgery and privations prevail. The committee confides its plans to no one. They are waiting, waiting for another child to die so that Susie can be carried out without being detected. It is a gruesome situation but they steel themselves against it in the knowledge that their actions will in the end provide liberty for all. That at least is the hope. It is all they have to keep them going.

One member of the committee is always on duty in the early hours to see if anyone has died, thus giving Susie time to prepare herself. One morning the expected happens. A girl of about Susie’s age who has not been long in the dungeon dies in the night. Susie looks at her poor emaciated body which from the first had no hope of survival. Before the guards come in to order the gangs to work, Susie slumps on the ground in the position of a corpse, a spectacle to which she is no stranger.

Seeing two bodies the guards shout to someone outside. By and by another guard comes in with an empty wheelie and throws in the two corpses. Susie is underneath, shuddering at the proximity of death. Her heart is beating so loudly she fears it will give her away. She is both frightened and elated.

The wheelie is pushed up the steep tunnel and through the entrance into the sunlight which penetrates Susie’s closed eyelids even as she lies below the corpse. The fresh air hits her like a revivifying spirit, making her head reel.

The wheelie is pushed for some distance. It is then put down, a door is opened. Voices, two sets of arms pick up first the dead girl and then Susie. They are throw onto a hard brick floor. The dead girl’s body breaks Susie’s fall. The door is shut, the voices fade. It has not, as far as Susie can tell, been locked.

*

They took no count of the days but knew when the time had come to leave their paradise. As they trudged back in the direction of The Manor, sun-soaked and drenched with happiness, the last days on their own, Joe braced himself for opening a subject that had been much on is mind.

‘You’re so beautiful,’ he told her for the hundredth time.

‘And you’re so handsome,’ she teased.

‘How much longer do you think I’ll stay that way?’

‘Oh, a day or two.’

‘A year or two, perhaps three, perhaps five, even ten. What then?’

She knew what he was driving at and remained silent.

‘I’m going to get older every year while you stay young.’

Coming from a culture of youth, Joe was accustomed to being pampered and regarded as the inheritor of the earth, a valiant hope for the future; but under the rules imposed by the drug, this situation was reversed. Young people who had not taken the drug had no future; not in the same terms as those whose active lives had been prolonged indefinitely. The terrible truth was that he would grow old while the others remained young. He imagined how he would be with the passing years, hair turning grey, his skin that now glowed becoming pockmarked, leathery, dry, his taut stomach bulging over his knees. He’d seen enough old men, the crotches of their trousers stained, life leaking stealthily away, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans everything. And Kathryn, forever young, beautiful, vibrant, would be forced to watch him crumble into his dotage. His and Kathryn’s life span ran according to different clocks. The years would tear them apart.

The time would come when she could no longer love him, only pity him.

‘How would it be if I took the drug?’ he asked diffidently, his casual air belying the importance he attached to the question. It did not deceive Kathryn.

‘It would be as bad for you, as it’s been bad for us. It corrupts people, it’s skewed our lives. Don’t you see Joe, everything that’s gone wrong is to do with the drug.’

‘That’s because of Helmuth. Without a tyrant your lives would be untroubled and full of opportunity.’

‘If there’s power available, there’s a tyrant. They go hand in hand. And I told you, Helmuth used to be a good man. He used to be a priest, dispensing justice and helping and advising people. Power changed him. It can change anyone.’

‘You’re not suggesting I could become like him?’

‘Of course not. But Helmuth is not an exception. We all have the potential to become despots, you, me, Otto, anyone.’

She started crying and he comforted her, feeling guilty at her unhappiness. He could not deny the truth of what she was saying, knew too well from his own world how corrupt apparently civilised people could become. Nevertheless, if his and Kathryn’s future was to be assured, they had no alternative but to confront the reality of the situation. In that sense, the drug indeed skewed their lives.

But he was not prepared for the vehemence of her feelings.

‘It’s not as wonderful as you imagine, living so long,’ she said accusingly.

‘You’ve forgotten what it’s like not to, don’t know how lucky you are.’

‘Don’t I? I wonder. Remember the time you and Otto were left alone and you didn’t know where we were?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you never wondered about it?’

‘I thought perhaps you hibernated.’

‘No. We don’t hibernate. We become apathetic. A deadening apathy takes hold and we can do nothing, not even speak. It’s the weight of all those years, on and on. The reason goes out of being alive, the colour out of the sky, the world looks grey, dull and stale, survival becomes worthless and one almost hopes that the townspeople will put an end to it. Time is a burden.’

‘Is it the same for the townspeople?’

‘Yes. Their longevity makes them apathetic much of the time, they can’t be bothered to finish things off. They could have killed us all by now, but they haven’t. I expect it’s the same in the town. Nothing is done properly. Even so, it doesn’t stop their world functioning, like it does here because there’s more of them, they can stand in for each other. And because they are not faced with constant danger they don’t have to be on the defensive.

Cat Walk. Joe suddenly remembered his surprise at not being followed into the waste ground and finished off.

Kathryn went on.

‘Sometimes these phases are so long that when we wake up the farm animals are either dead or have strayed and we have to start all over again.’

‘But Otto stays awake.’

‘He has a stronger spirit than us. But even he is overcome sometimes. I think it’s only the danger from the townspeople that’s kept us going all these years. They pose a challenge.’

‘You haven’t had one of your sleeping spells again.’

She looked at him strangely.

‘Because of you.’

‘Me?’

‘Your youth. It’s revivified us; but that would stop if you took the drug. You’d be like us and....’

She hesitated.

‘And what?’

‘It’s difficult to love forever.’

‘Not for me it isn’t.’

‘You don’t know. Time wears you away. Randolph and Belinda....’

‘Yes?’

‘They were lovers, together for a long, long time, oh I don’t know how many years. Then their love faded, bit by bit, I saw it wasting away until nothing remained but its shreds.’