A Dream of Wessex (12 page)

Coloured lights were strung along the trees in Marine Boulevard, and these, with the golden, hissing glow of the gas-lamps against the sides of the buildings, cast an attractive multi-hued radiance over the passers-by.

David Harkman walked slowly down the Boulevard towards the harbour, his right arm resting lightly on Julia’s shoulders. She held herself close to him, and her head rested against his chest; the nearness was a shadow of their earlier intimacy.

She seemed small against him, for his arm could pass right around her back. He felt very tender towards her, because she had been with him all evening, from the moment she knocked on the door of his hostel room. Their evening had been simple: they had gone to the harbour to move his new skimmer to the mooring he had rented earlier in the day, and after that they had eaten a meal at Sekker’s Bar. From there they had returned to his room for the rest of the evening. They had been awkward with each other at first, neither of them wanting to talk about the strange link they both felt, but afterwards this mutual understanding had been acknowledged in an unspoken, physical way. Their lovemaking had been affectionate and passionate, exhausting them both.

Even so, as they walked in the humid night Harkman felt that the bond was weaker. It was not just that they had consummated the sexual desire, nor that mysteries had been dispelled. He had felt it as soon as she arrived: the intangible bond between them had been untied.

As they strolled along the Boulevard, Harkman realized that already the memory of their lovemaking had the same quality to it as those memories of his life before he had applied for the Dorchester posting. He remembered the fact of what they had done together, but the memory of it was remote.

Even as he thought this, Harkman knew that it was neither fair nor right. He had felt and experienced, had lived the moments.

He suspected and feared that it was a shortcoming in himself, an inability to feel, and he tried unsuccessfully to put it from his mind.

Julia was warm under his arm, and he could detect her heart beating against the side of his body. It was a clinical observation, like a test of reality.

When they reached the harbour, they went down the concrete steps together, and he helped Julia into her boat. They kissed briefly, but with passion.

‘Will you come again?’

‘If you’d like me to,’ she said.

‘You know I would. But only if you want to.’

‘I’ll come ... tomorrow, I think.’ She was standing unsteadily in the boat, holding his hands as he balanced on the edge of the steps. She said: ‘David ... I do want to see you again.’

They kissed once more, then at last Julia settled herself at the back of the boat, started the engine and in a moment had steered away across the harbour. The water was black and calm, and the coloured lights hanging on the far side reflected back from the surface in perfect symmetry with themselves. As her boat churned up the water, the wake sent the colours flashing and colliding.

Harkman stood on the harbour wall at the top of the steps until he could hear the engine no more, then walked back through the town.

It was odd how memory seemed to detach itself from experience; already, the sight of Julia’s boat heading out across the black, multi-coloured water seemed distant from himself. It was as if there were a false experience in memory, one given to him. It seemed that he had been walking alone through the Boulevard all evening and into the night, with entirely spurious memories appearing in sequence to supply the false experience.

Memory was created by events, surely?

It could not be the other way around.

He had said nothing of this dilemma to Julia, although he had been aware of reality reshaping itself behind him all evening.

The meal at Sekker’s: a remarkably good sea-food casserole, with wine from the north of France, it had been the most delicious meal Harkman had had since his arrival. Julia said she had never eaten at Sekker’s before. Small incidents were memorable: the waiter who had given Julia a rose; the four musicians who had deafened everyone on the patio until being asked to leave by the head waiter; the uproarious party at the next table, with six States Americans dressed in Arab robes and singing campus chants. The meal had happened; his stomach could still feel its weight.

And yet, even as they left Sekker’s, Harkman had had a nagging sense that the memory of it was false.

With Julia, too: as they’d made love Harkman had a sudden insight that her arrival in his bed was spontaneous, that she had always been there, and that the events leading up to the moment were there only in implanted memory.

Afterwards, the sex itself became a memory, the drained, relaxed hour that followed being in its turn the only reality.

And now, as he walked back towards the Commission hostel, Harkman thought of the whispered departure from the harbour, and the boat crossing the smooth black water, as events created by memory.

It was as if Julia had not been there, that she did not exist except as some palpable extension of his own imagination, which, like a childhood ghoul, had substance only as long as he concentrated on it.

He reached the hostel and made his way up to his room, careful not to meet any of his colleagues from the Commission. They all appeared to be in bed, for the building was silent.

He washed and undressed, and pulled back the crumpled covers of the bed. There, on the lower sheet, was a small damp patch of deeply intimate memory. Harkman stared at it thoughtfully, knowing that it was as real to him as all his other recollections of the evening; as real... and as remote from memory.

As he lay naked in the bed, waiting for sleep, the patch of damp was against his back, cold and sticky.

Donald Mander was on the telephone to Wessex House in London. He had been brought back from Wessex a day before Julia Stretton and the others, and any signs of residual strain had passed. He felt rested and well, although the news of Tom Benedict’s death had had a sobering effect on him. At fifty- four he was now the oldest member of the projection.

‘... the inquiry will be held the day after tomorrow,’ he was saying to Gerald Bonner, the trustees’ legal adviser. ‘Yes, after the funeral.’

Bonner was concerned about the possibility of adverse publicity following Tom’s death. Although the Wessex project was not secret, after the initial interest shown at the inception of the projection, the media had turned its fickle ear to other matters and for most of the two years’ life of the projection the work had gone on with what had become jealously guarded privacy and concentration.

‘... no, there’s no need for a post-mortem, apparently. Tom was technically under medical supervision. Yes, naturally we’re being careful. The medical checks will be intensified before anyone goes back into the projection.’

He listened to Bonner talking about the possibility of a claim from Benedict’s dependants, and how much that might cost.

‘He wasn’t married,’ Mander said. ‘But I’ll see if anyone here knows about his family.’

Afterwards, Mander rang through to Maiden Castle and spoke to John Eliot, who had requested a meeting of participants this morning.

‘We’ll be ready to start in a few minutes,’ he said.

Eliot confirmed that observation of all the participants had been stepped up. The only real cause for alarm was David Harkman; he was now the only participant who had never been brought back. The fact that he had been traced at last meant that it was only a matter of time, but for a human body to be held in suspension for more than two years could have any number of physiological side-effects. The two projection retrievers - Andrew Holder and Steve Carlsen - were in Wessex looking for him at the moment, but whether Harkman’s long exposure to the future had weakened the mnemonics and the deep-hypnotic triggers was something nobody knew.

The retrievals were overlaid with elements of chance, and Mander himself couldn’t help being amused at the way in which he had been retrieved this time.

Andy and Steve had presented themselves at the Commission, asking for a visa to visit France. The clerk on the desk had noticed the rough-sewn clothes - the unmistakable style of the Maiden Castle community - and had stonewalled them for an hour. The two young men had persisted, until the clerk summoned Mander. Once they were in his office they produced their little mirrors, and he had followed them back to the Castle without any resistance.

It was always a haphazard operation. Neither the participants nor Steve and Andy had any real idea, while they were in their future personae, of why they should meet, and it was a credit to their own initiative and mnemonic training that they ever found the people they were looking for.

Like all the others, Donald Mander always felt an acute sense of frustration in the hours after being brought back. Once one had the perspective of one’s real memories it was always so simple to see what could have been done as an alternative. But the future alter ego took over completely; personality and memory were left behind.

It was at the heart of the problem concerning Harkman: inside the projection he was motivated by the memories and personality of his alter ego.

By the time Mander had collected together his various notes, and the report he had typed up the night before, John Eliot had arrived from the Castle, and they met in the hall downstairs.

‘Have you seen Paul Mason yet?’ Eliot said, as they walked slowly down the corridor to the lounge they used for the meetings.

‘I spoke to him briefly last night after I’d seen you. I didn’t find out much about him.’

‘He’s got a good degree. Durham University. He did a spell in journalism, but for the last five years he’s been in commerce. Technically, he’s just what we need to replace Tom. He worked with a property research group, planning capital outlay.’

‘But do you really think he’ll fit in?’ Mander said, expressing the one doubt that could never be allayed by Eliot’s talk of qualifications and experience. Yesterday evening, he and Eliot had had a long, private argument, Mander voicing what he imagined would be the objection of all the other participants: that no one new could join the projection this late in its existence and not bring drastic changes to its shape.

‘Whether he fits in or not, you’ll have to prepare yourself for him. The trustees are adamant about his joining. But I don’t see any problems. He’s a very personable young man, and he’s certainly grasped the principle of projection quickly.’

‘I gather he’s coming to this meeting.’

‘That’s right. I thought he should meet one or two of the others.’ They had reached the door, and Eliot pushed it open. ‘After you.’

Because the projection was weakened by the removal of participants, it was held that at any one time no more than five people should be out of the projector, and with Tom Benedict’s death this number had been reduced to four.

At the moment, in addition to Don Mander himself, Colin Willment had been brought back, as he was due for a period of leave. Mary Rickard had been retrieved also, at the request of her family, but she was expected to stay out of the projection for only a few days. In addition, Julia Stretton had been retrieved for further discussions about David Harkman, and the situation arising out of Tom’s death.

When Mander and Eliot walked into the lounge, Colin and Mary were waiting for them. Julia had still not arrived.

Mander nodded to them with the slightly wary expression he found himself adopting whenever he met fellow participants outside the projection.

Apart from himself, Mary Rickard was the most senior member present. She was a biochemist from Bristol University, and had been with the projection from its earliest days. A shrewd judge of character, and a forceful theoretician about the nature of the projection, Mary had gained the respect of the others in the early, planning days, but since then, because of her inadvertently secondary role in Wessex, her manner had mellowed somewhat. Mary’s future alter ego was a member of the Maiden Castle craft community, and neither she nor Mander had any recollection of their ever meeting in Wessex.

Colin Willment was the project’s economist, and had been missing, for a time, in the way that Harkman had been missing. He had been traced eventually to the commercial dock at Poundbury, where his alter ego worked as a stevedore.

While they waited for the others to arrive, Mander and Eliot poured themselves coffee from the electric percolator that the staff at Bincombe provided.

Mary Rickard said: ‘Don, I’d like to go to Tom’s funeral. Will that be possible?’

‘Yes, of course. I imagine Julia will want to go too.’

‘Has she been retrieved?’ Mary said.

‘Yesterday. She should be here. Does anyone know where she is?’

John Eliot said: ‘Trowbridge examined her this morning. She knows about the meeting ... she should be here.’

As Mander and Eliot found chairs, Julia walked into the room. Mander’s first thought was that she was still recovering from the after-effects of retrieval: she looked pale and drawn, and seemed very tense. She said hello to the others, then went to the sideboard to pour herself a cup of coffee. He noticed that her hands were shaking, and that as she spooned sugar into her cup she spilled a lot of it into the saucer.

Watching her, Mander was reminded of the many times he had seen her future persona at the stall in Dorchester. His own alter ego was a mildly lecherous one, and purposely passed the stall during his evening strolls. The first time he had met Julia outside the projection, he had explained to her that his frequent winks and knowing smiles were obviously a symptom of the subliminal recognition that members of the projection often experienced between each other in Wessex.

To the amused embarrassment of his real self, the Wessex Mander’s lechery had continued afterwards, and showed no sign of abating. Once she had caught him standing on tiptoe to peep down the front of her dress as she leaned forward ... and the look she had given him then had not been one of projective recognition.

As Julia sat down, John Eliot said: ‘I’m afraid we have quite a lot of work to get through this morning, but first we must establish who will be returning to the projection this week. Mary, you have to go up to London?’