A Dream of Wessex (16 page)

The little circular mirrors that Andy and Steve used were the only known way of retrieving anyone from Wessex. It was a system Ridpath and Eliot had worked out between them: because of the loss of real identity within the projection, the participants would need an independent post-hypnotic trigger to make them abandon the unconscious world. They had decided on the use of mirrors. Nowhere in Wessex - and, for all they knew, nowhere in the whole imagined future world - was there another circular mirror. Square mirrors, rectangular mirrors, oval mirrors ... but none circular. The only ones in existence were at Maiden Castle.

‘Do you think it’s possible that Harkman has become resistant?’ Mander said.

‘That’s what it seems,’ Eliot said. ‘Apparently, Steve found him at the stall in Dorchester. He tried to sell him a mirror, but when he held it out Harkman simply said “no thanks”, and Steve left it at that. I gather you were there too, Julia.’

That took her by surprise. ‘You mean at the stall?’

‘Steve said you took the mirror from him, and threw it away. Then there was an argument, about the sort of goods that the stall should sell.’

Julia smiled; her alter ego had firm ideas about that sort of thing.

‘When was this?’ Mander said.

‘This morning.’

When the participants had first discovered that their alter egos lived on in Wessex after retrieval there had been considerable confusion, especially in the minds of those people still projecting. How could the future identity continue to have substance without the projected personality? The answer was that during the period of return, the alter ego existed in the unconscious minds of the others; it became an auxiliary ego for the duration, projected by those who were in closest contact in the future world.

While the participant was outside the projector, it was of course impossible to discover what the alter ego was doing, but on rejoining the projection there would be full memories of the interim period.

Julia was aware that when she went back to Wessex she would know exactly what the imagined Julia had done in the meantime; she would know because it would seem to be a part of her experience.

On the evening of the day she had been retrieved she had been intending to meet David Harkman in Dorchester. She wondered if they had met as planned.

In the same way that she had a double, and sometimes contradictory, image of herself and her own future persona, so Julia had conflicting feelings about David Harkman. As she was here, living her real life in the real world, Harkman was just another member of the projection, if one in an unusual situation. But her memory of Harkman’s alter ego was altogether different: warm, intrigued, excited, deeply personal.

If she had been seen in Dorchester with David Harkman it could mean only one thing: that her ego was being projected by him. He was relating closely to her, she had reached his unconscious mind. Just as the participants projected auxiliary egos to satisfy some unconscious longing, so Harkman was projecting an image of her in her absence.

This realization stirred a profound response in Julia; as Wessex had become an unconscious refuge for all the participants, so David Harkman had become a personal one for her. She felt again the call of the future, but this time it was one emanating from a particular source.

Her reports already omitted the personal dissatisfaction of her life with Greg; there was no reason why she should report the satisfactions she felt with someone, else. It would be something no one need ever discover, an area of her life she could exclude from everyone.

She noticed that Paul was staring at her across the room, and she looked straight back at him. David Harkman had become a source of strength; he was one thing that Paul could never tamper with!

Lost in her own thoughts, Julia was paying little attention to what was going on around her. The purpose of a meeting like this was usually for the various participants to talk about their latest experiences in Wessex. Although written reports were always filed, verbal exchanges were considered to be of equal importance for being informal. A process known as conscious assimilation was supposed to take place: unexplained gaps in the projected world’s structure, as seen from one person’s point of view, could sometimes be filled by another’s observations.

Colin Willment was speaking at the moment, describing the last few weeks in Wessex. Normally, Julia would listen to the others’ reports with interest, but today her mind was elsewhere.

It was still Paul who was distracting her. It frightened her to think that he might have more emotional trapdoors to open under her, but she was calmer now, better able to cope.

For the moment there was equilibrium. Paul was to join the projection, and she had inner strengths to draw on.

Colin finished his verbal report in a few minutes, and Mary Rickard followed. Julia knew her turn would come, and so she thought more directly about what she would say. She wanted nothing inadvertent to slip out, especially about David, nothing that would give Paul any more information about her part in the projection than he already had.

Part of the difficulty was that Don, Mary and Colin were present. How much should be stated, how much remain private?

Julia wondered if her interest in David’s alter ego was already known to them. Matters of this sort trickled into the consciousness. She knew, for instance, that Colin Willment was ‘married’ in Wessex, just as he was married in reality. She knew also, although she had never been told, that his projected wife was quite different from his real wife.

It was something she understood on an instinctive level, and one she felt honour-bound not to explore further.

So although the other participants would already have an inkling that something was developing between her and Harkman, Julia saw no reason to talk about it. If it was being assimilated on an unconscious level, why accelerate the process by drawing attention to it now?

She waited while Mary talked, not listening to her but organizing her thoughts and memories. Paul was still watching.

Then John Eliot said: ‘Julia, since we’re interested in David Harkman at the moment, and you were trying to locate him, perhaps you could report next.’

She hadn’t realized that Mary had finished. She sat forward in her chair, trying to look as if she had been following what she had said.

‘Miss Stretton,’ Eliot said to Paul, ‘is the geologist in the team.’

‘Yes, I know,’ Paul said. ‘We’re old friends.’

It came so unexpectedly, and was said in such an off-hand manner, that for a moment or two Julia hardly realized that Paul had thrown the hand-grenade whose pin he had removed that morning. But she had had time to recover from that surprise, and as the bomb landed she was able to pick it up and toss it back.

‘Well, hardly old friends,’ she said, and affected a light laugh. ‘It seems we were at university together. Quite a coincidence really.’

Mary, sitting next to Julia, said unexpectedly: ‘Mr Mason, you know there’s a rule we have in the project? We discourage relationships outside the projection.’

‘Mary, you’re embarrassing Julia,’ Don Mander said.

‘Not at all,’ Julia said, suddenly aware that Mary at least had revealed where her loyalties lay. ‘We’re almost strangers to each other. I didn’t recognize Mr Mason until he introduced himself.’

Eliot, who had been looking from Paul to Julia, seemed relieved by the casual tone of her answer.

‘Go on, Julia ... tell us about David Harkman.’

‘There’s not much to tell.’ She was trying to avoid thinking of the consequences of what had just happened. Paul had tried to carry out his threat, and it had failed. Would he try again? What would he do next?

‘I think I’d been in the projection a fortnight before Harkman appeared,’ she said, talking, making words. ‘You know that the stall is on the harbour, and one evening…’

She was talking too quickly, trying to get her story out. The censor she had invoked stayed in place, but she was embellishing her report with too many irrelevant details. She didn’t want to seem as if thrown off-balance by Paul, or anyone, and it was a relief to speak of the thing she knew best. By the time she had been talking for about five minutes she was more in control of herself, and kept her story factual and to the point. She described meeting Harkman outside the skimmer-shop, and the next day when he visited the Castle. She described where Harkman was known to be living and working, where the retrievers would have their best chance of finding him. After this, she talked about Tom Benedict, and what had happened to him.

If the others were aware of the tension she felt they did not show it. They listened with interest, asking occasional questions.

But Paul was silent, sitting opposite her. He was leaning back in his chair, with his legs crossed, and all the time she was talking his hard eyes never once turned away from her.

The meeting lasted all day. In the evening, as they walked along the corridor to the dining-room, Paul fell in beside her. John Eliot and Mander were a few yards ahead of them; Mary and Colin walked a few paces behind.

Paul said: ‘I want a word with you.’

She stared ahead, trying not to acknowledge him.

Each table was set for four, and Julia headed for the one she had used at lunchtime. Paul followed, and sat at the same table. John Eliot saw this, and came over to them.

‘I expect you two have a lot in common,’ he said, smiling at Julia.

‘Old college days,’ Paul said. ‘Which year did you take your finals, Miss Stretton?’

As Eliot went over to sit at another table with Mander, Julia said softly. ‘You can drop the pretence, Paul. I’m going to tell them.’

‘What? Everything? You wouldn’t dare.’

‘Everything they need to know. I’m not the only one who doesn’t want you here.’

‘Tell them whatever you like. Suits me. Are you going to tell them about the money?’

‘What money?’ Julia said at once.

‘The fifty quid you owe me.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’ A movement by the door caught her eye, and she turned away from him, her face reddening. It was Marilyn, and Julia waved to her to come to the table.

Julia went through the motions of introducing her to Paul, but inside she felt a deep, familiar dread. She knew which fifty pounds Paul meant, but it didn’t matter. Not now.

Paul said to Marilyn: ‘You’ve just saved Julia from an old debt. She owes me fifty pounds.’

Marilyn laughed. ‘I thought you two had only just met!‘

‘He’s joking,’ Julia said, and forced a laugh of her own.

One day they’d had a row. Why it was that day and that row didn’t matter ... it was just one of dozens. Paul had won an office sweep, and he had come in from work brandishing the winnings. He was talking big in those days, wanted to set up on his own. Julia - it felt like a different Julia now - had spent the day job-hunting, was tired and bitter. An argument had started, the row developed. At the end, Julia had snatched the money from where he’d put it, stormed out of the flat. Stupidly, stupidly, she lost her purse, and with it went the money and her door key. Afterwards, he would only let her in after she wept and knelt outside the door, and he’d pushed her on the bed and possessed her violently. There was a parting shot, there always was with Paul: the worst fifty quid’s worth he’d had. That week.

Later he told the story for laughs, changing the facts to suit his own vanity. He always told the story in her presence, always got his laugh. After that, whenever money was mentioned, any money, he always somehow equated it with sex.

The surface of the dining-table was deep-grained, dark- polished wood, and Julia stared at the rush place-mat in front of her, shifting it with her fingers and making the cutlery tinkle. Paul was talking in a friendly way to Marilyn, the fifty pounds wasn’t being mentioned.

She had never paid it back, never got round to it. She was always broke in the old days, and since then, since leaving Paul, she had put it out of her mind. She could pay it back now, pay it back twenty times and hardly miss it ... but that wasn’t the point. If she offered it to him he would refuse it; if she didn’t he would never let her forget. But of course it wasn’t the money itself. It had become a symbolic debt, the repayment that was due for walking out on him.

But then, as had happened during the afternoon, Julia felt her spirits rallying.

The debt was one she did not acknowledge; the money was irrelevant, and if she had ever done one thing in her life she never regretted it was leaving Paul.

While the first course was being served, Julia noticed Paul eyeing Marilyn’s body. She was a bigger, more bosomy, girl than Julia, .and this evening she was wearing a skinny-thin sweater without a bra. Paul would like that, Paul had a thing about breasts. Even in that he had tried to make her feel inadequate; he used to point out other girls to her, and complain that she was too thin and round-shouldered.

Her spirits were still high: it suddenly occurred to’ her that the only remaining vulnerabilities were petty and unimportant. A small sum of money, her bust-measurement: were these all that Paul could threaten her with?

Her sardonic amusement must have revealed itself on her face, because Marilyn suddenly looked away from Paul and grinned at her.

‘Do you feel like going out for a drink this evening?’ she said to her.

Julia shook her head. ‘No ... I’d better stay in. I’ve got to write my report tonight.’

Paul said nothing, but Julia saw him looking towards her. He was wearing a broad, false smile, and he winked lewdly at her. Marilyn, looking round for some butter, didn’t see. It seemed to be a pointless thing to do.

Julia said very little during the meal, and as soon as she had had her dessert she excused herself from the table. She went across to John Eliot, who was still eating.

‘Dr Eliot, I’d like to rejoin the projection as soon as possible. Can it be tomorrow evening?’

‘You’ll be going to Tom’s funeral?’

‘Of course.’

‘I’m not sure. You’ve only just been retrieved. We really should leave it for three days.’