A Dream of Wessex (21 page)

‘The election of a new member. At the moment opinion seems to be split.’

‘Who is it to be?’

‘A man called Donald Mander. He’s a Commission official. He’d make an excellent administrator.’

‘Someone from the Commission?’ Julia said, frowning. ‘That’s an unusual step.’

‘So some of us think. Others think it would be worth the risk.’ She stared at Eliot blankly, thinking of David. If they could seriously consider a government official for the project then they could hardly object to David. Her negative answer to David’s simple, understandable request had hurt him bitterly... but then she had not seen a way. But now, perhaps she could suggest... No, there was Paul. Always Paul.

‘Is Paul here?’

‘He’s in the mortuary at the moment,’ Eliot said. ‘He’ll be back later.’

‘What does Paul think about Mander?’

‘He’s for him.’

‘So am I,’ Julia said.

‘Do you know him?’

‘I’ve seen him about Dorchester. I don’t know much about him, but he used to smile at me when I was at the stall.’

‘I didn’t know you were vain, Julia.’

‘I’m not. I’ve a feeling about Mander. That’s been enough for the rest of us, hasn’t it?’

Eliot nodded, but vaguely. Julia and the others had tried to explain about the intangible sense of recognition, but Eliot claimed he never experienced it. It had now become the fundamental criterion by which people were invited to join the project. Julia herself knew the intangible well enough, because it was the same with David.

The same, but different with David.

‘Are you going to speak up in Mander’s favour?’ Eliot said, looking towards the table, where the arguments had continued as they had been speaking.

‘No need. He’ll be accepted in the end. You can put me down for an “aye”, if you like. Where’s the reading I have to do?’

Julia looked around for somewhere to sit, while Eliot went to the shelves to find a book. In the warm air of the conference room her wet clothes did not feel too uncomfortable. She found a chair near one of the heaters, thinking that she could steam quietly by herself until dry. She tossed back her hair, wondering if she could borrow a brush or a comb from Marilyn.

She looked to see who was already here. She recognized Rod, Nathan, Alicia and Clark from the Castle community; she knew each of these well, as they had been in Wessex for many months. There were several other people at the table, people she recognized from other conferences, to whom she had been introduced but whose names she had since forgotten. They were all from Dorchester or its environs. One man worked on a farm near Cerne Abbas; two of the women came from villages on the southern shore of the bay. All had social or academic qualifications, all were living double lives to facilitate their work here. It was a strange contrivance, and she was glad that because she was already a member of the Castle community she did not have to resort to elaborate deceptions to come here.

Eliot returned with the book, opening it at the pages he had selected.

‘This is the passage to read,’ he said.’

The book was an old work, describing the geological substrata of the Wessex region before the seismic upheavals of the previous century. The idea, Eliot explained, was to work out a theory by which the present land subsidence could be seen as but a temporary phase in geophysical evolution, so that a return to something like the former circumstances could be envisaged.

Julia took the book with mixed feelings: geology was her subject, so there would be no difficulty with technical language - which made her work harder in other faculties - but at the same time it meant she would have to cover old ground, in an almost literal sense. What had thrilled her during her studies had been the present geological structure of this region, one which on a geological scale had been shaped only yesterday.

Old theories, old facts, had to be learned; the present had to be unlearned.

Nevertheless, in spite of these misgivings, she soon became interested in the book, and was still reading half an hour later when Paul Mason walked into the room.

Everyone noticed his arrival; he was that sort of man. As the director of this project he commanded immediate respect and attention. All the work, all the eventual functions of the project, were his. He had worked for several years to bring these people together; he was an idealist with an achieved ideal, and he inspired the others.

As he walked across the room he saw Julia, and gave her one of his secret smiles, the sort he reserved for her alone. She responded automatically, feeling, as she always did, the instinctive and selfish pride of ownership.

She shared Paul with no one; she was his woman.

That look he gave her spoke of the things no one here could ever intrude into: the secret life, the private man. Only she was allowed this insight into the other Paul, and it was allowed because of their intimate understanding of each other.

Deep inside her, a spectral memory flared like a match-flame in a darkened cellar ... and a spectral version of herself recoiled in horror.

As Paul sat down at the table with the others, Julia stared with unfocused eyes at the floor, her spectral identity struggling for release. She thought of David, she thought of his love, she thought of hers.

Soon, she began to tremble.

The heavy thunderstorm had brought a break in the weather, and six days later it was cool, windy and squally in Dorchester. David Harkman’s frustration continued; he had not seen Julia since the afternoon on the heath, and discreet inquiries, mainly of the two Castle people working behind the stall, got him nowhere. They appeared to know nothing of her, and were surprised that he should be interested.

He was still being blocked by Mander’s apparent reluctance to let him at the archives, and on the fourth day he had left the Commission in a rage and travelled up to Child Okeford to ride the Blandford wave. This too had left him unsatisfied; the tide was unseasonally low, and the wave had been crowded with inept amateurs. Swerving to avoid a group of riders, Harkman had slipped behind the crest of the wave, making the whole expedition futile and irritating.

Futility and irritation were two feelings he was well acquainted with, and Harkman had little doubt whence they grew.

It was a cruel irony that within a few minutes of Julia’s apparent return to him - his knowledge that the intangible was there again - she had left him. And in spite of what she told him, Harkman remained convinced that she had left him for some other man.

His response was human and straightforward: he suffered an abiding and wounding jealousy.

On the sixth morning he inquired again about the matter of the archives, and once more Mander told him that Commissioner Borovitin was ‘considering’ his request, Harkman, enraged again, left the Commission offices and for want of anything better to do strolled along the sea-front, watching the holiday-makers with a mixture of boredom and envy. He walked the length of the Boulevard, past the skimmer-shop and all the stalls, past Sekker’s Bar, and along the road that led to Victoria Beach.

Two peddlers approached him, holding out some of their wares. At first he didn’t see what they were offering, noticing instead that they were wearing Castle clothes.

‘Will you look at a mirror, sir?’ said one of the two, and held a little circular piece of glass before his eyes.

Harkman saw a crazy, flashing reflection of himself, but then he pushed past them and walked on. The mirror was a cheap bauble, a common ornament. It was the second time peddlers had tried to sell him one.

Victoria Beach was as crowded as usual, in spite of the cool weather. Many of the visitors lay on the sand, presenting their naked bodies to the cloudy sky, apparently relishing this opportunity for fashionable exhibitionism without the risk of unfashionable suntan. Harkman paused for few minutes, staring down at them. People always seemed to behave the same on a beach, discarding normal behaviour with their clothes.

Beyond the beach, set on its hill, was Maiden Castle: symbol and embodiment of his discontents.

Julia was there, but his jealousy was defensive, and he dared not seek her out.

Standing by the rail overlooking the beach, Harkman felt again the primal instinct that drew him to the Castle. It represented the permanence of time, an inexplicable link with the past.

It came from the past, the real past, the historical past.

Maiden Castle had been there on its hilltop as Dorchester was being rebuilt after the earthquakes. It had been there as the earth had shaken and subsided, and as the sea crept towards it, submerging the valleys around. It had stood on its hill indifferent to the nations and races of the world, as they argued and warred about territory and money, maize and oil and copper, ideology and torture, political influence and frenetic arms-race. It had been there as the first steam-train followed its bright new iron tracks towards Weymouth in the south, and it had been there as kings struggled with parliaments, and as feudal lords and seigneurs raised private armies to extend their lands. The Romans had sacked it, the ancient Britons had raised it. Time was deposited about Maiden Castle like layers of sedimentary rock, and Harkman could excavate it with his imagination.

It distracted him because it was the focus of his interest in Wessex.

He had not come to find Julia, although he had found her, and he had not come to ride the Blandford wave, although he had done so and would again. The Castle was central to everything: a sense of past, of continuity, of permanence.

If he walked along Victoria Beach from here he would be at the Castle in ten minutes. Harkman tested his courage against his jealousies, and his courage failed. He glanced once more at the glowing green mound, then turned back and walked quickly into Dorchester.

He had been at his desk for no more than ten minutes when the internal telephone rang.

‘Mr Harkman? This is Cro, of Information. I understand that the Commissioner has authorized you to examine our archives.’

‘I thought Mander was in charge of those.’

‘Mr Mander is taking a few days’ leave of absence. Before he went I took it upon myself to make sure you received your clearance. Do you wish to use the archives today?’

‘Yes, of course. I’ll come now.’

He went first to Cro’s office, then followed the portly little man to the elevator.

The archives were kept in the basement of the building: a huge storehouse behind a fireproof wall, filled with metal racks that covered all four walls and made artificial aisles across the width of the room. On these shelves were stacked the records: cardboard-boxfuls of papers, books, pamphlets, bound folders, licences, records of births and deaths, notes of court-proceedings, file upon file of memoranda from Westminster and the other provincial Commissions, statutes, minutes of meetings, newspapers, government posters, police-records ... all the dusty memorabilia of service to and administration of the State, and a mouldering testament to the pedantic mind of the bureaucrat, which will never allow anything to be thrown away.

‘I’ll have to lock you in, Harkman,’ Cro said.

‘That’s all right.’ Harkman looked at his watch: it was just after two. ‘Come down for me at five, unless I telephone beforehand. And I’ll probably want to spend all day tomorrow here.’

Cro pointed to a browned, faded sign above the door. ‘You can’t smoke in here.’

‘I wasn’t intending to.’

‘You’d better give me your cigarettes, in case.’

Harkman stared at Cro aggressively, fighting to keep his temper. He had had only occasional contact with this man, but he felt he knew and understood him, or his type. Because of Harkman’s status as an attached academic, Cro was administratively his junior, but the archives were his domain. To avoid a needless scene, Harkman handed over his cigarettes, aware that he was scowling like a schoolboy caught smoking behind the gym.

He forced a grin. ‘I suppose I might have been tempted.’

‘I’ll keep them for you,’ Cro said, and put them on a shelf outside the room. He closed and locked the door, then nodded to Harkman through the heavy glass window, and walked away. Harkman stared thoughtfully through the window at his cigarettes, knowing that if Cro had taken them with him he would have forgotten them. Now he wanted a smoke.

He turned away, intent on getting on with what he had come down here for.

Until now, the only aspect of the archives he had had access to was a part of the index, so he already had a partial understanding of the filing-system, and the numbered codes used to identify different classifications.

He walked up and down the aisles, looking at the boxes and folders. The newer additions to the collection stood out from the others, for their labels were as yet clean, unyellowed by age. Harkman tried to read the words inscribed on the spines of various folders, lifted the dusty lids of boxes to peer inside. The air in the vault was dry and stale, and even just walking raised clouds of fine dust, making his eyes water and his nose itch.

He worked aimlessly for half an hour, not only unsure of where to look, but uncertain of what it was he was seeking. The rows of dirty folders confused him; the order in which they were stacked appeared to be random, with the court-records for one year placed with seeming purpose next to the register of marriages for another, twenty-three years before.

He returned to the index, and chose a few entries at random, trying to work out the system. After some false starts he managed to trace a chosen item: Housing Committee, Minutes of Meetings, 2117-2119. He had no interest in the proceedings of a committee sitting some twenty years before, but finding it had helped him understand the system.

Now with more than an inkling of how to go about his search, Harkman settled down at one of the desks with the index in front of him. He had already abstracted a list of certain records he wanted to examine, and he took out his notebook and checked off two or three items of special interest. By a quarter past three he had a list of some forty entries that might contain what he was looking for, and he went in search of them. He couldn’t find them all, but he soon had at his desk a land-registry that covered the whole of the twenty-first century, newspaper files, Commission year-books for the last three decades, minutes of Party meetings and congresses, a popular history of the twentieth century, several guide-books to Maiden Castle, and copies of various memoranda sent between Westminster and the Resources Attaché’s office in the last two years.