A Dream of Wessex (27 page)

‘Do it, Julia! I’ll keep Mason off you.’

She hesitated a moment longer, then undid the buttons of the raincoat. Her arm got caught in the sleeve as she pulled it off, and Harkman helped her. She was watching Paul, and her fingers fumbled with her dress.

‘Julia!’
Mason cried.
‘Don’t go!’

‘Paul it’s what we planned.’

‘You’ll die, Julia! You’ll be killed!’ ‘Don’t talk to him/ Harkman said. ‘It makes him worse. Stay calm, and let me handle him.’

They managed to get the dress off her at last. She swept back her hair, which was still damp and tangled from the rain, and reached up to kiss Harkman briefly.

‘Come straight away,’ she said. ‘Do you know which is your drawer?’

‘That one, I think.’ He was pointing towards the one he had recognized as his. It was just beyond where Paul Mason still huddled on the floor.

Julia said: ‘David, this is right! We both feel it.’

What do I do, though?’

‘You can pull yourself in,’ she said. ‘There’s a handle inside. And a large mirror above you ... look into it.’

Mason was trying to get up, but he seemed dazed and his movements were uncoordinated. Harkman glanced down at him, wondering whether to knock him over again.

‘Get into the drawer, Julia. I’ll help you.’

He made sure the drawer was pulled right out, then Julia sat on the metal surface and lay back. She shifted her head and shoulders a few times, apparently trying to settle herself comfortably, and pushed her hair out of the way so that it did not interfere with any of the electrodes.

‘I’m ready, David.’

He bent over her and kissed her lightly on the lips.

‘I love you, Julia. Are you frightened?’

She smiled up at him. ‘Not now. This is what we have to do.’

‘I’m not frightened either. Are you ready?’

On the floor a short distance away, Paul Mason groaned.

‘Yes, I’m ready.’

David pressed against the drawer, and felt it slide smoothly into the body of the machine. He looked down at her, hoping to catch her expression, but she had turned her eyes away from him, was looking to the side.

The drawer closed. In the last instant Harkman saw a bright light turn on inside the cabinet, and as the drawer settled into place he saw the brilliance outlined squarely.

Mason was on his feet, and he had moved away from the cabinets.

‘Where’s Julia, Harkman?’

He tried to ignore the man, stepping round him, but Mason side-stepped to block his way.

‘You’re not interfering any more, Harkman. Who the hell are you, anyway? Where’s Julia? What have you done with her?’

‘Get out of the way, Mason.’

‘You’re not getting into the machine. I’ll kill you.’

‘You can’t stop me.’

They stood facing each other, and Harkman’s heart started to race again. Mason was crouching, as if ready to leap on him. Then Mason looked away, and stared towards Julia’s drawer. The brilliant internal light was fading, and as both men watched it dimmed and went out.

Mason turned towards the cabinets, and Harkman took a step forward.

There was a bell ringing in darkness, then a jerking, sliding motion, and light shone in her eyes. People were moving about, and it was hot.

‘It’s Miss Stretton!‘ somebody said, and another voice shouted above the clatter of metal and hubbub of voices: ‘Nurse! Bring a sedative! ‘

Julia opened her eyes, and her first impression was the customary one: that the drawer of the Ridpath projector had opened the instant it was closed, and that she was still in Wessex ... but there were too many people about, and there was no Paul, no David.

A man in a white coat was standing over her, his head turned away and his arm reaching out impatiently towards someone hurrying across to him. He held Julia’s wrist in his other hand, his fingers on her pulse. The nurse put a hypodermic needle into the doctor’s outstretched hand, and bent over to swab the inside of her elbow.

Julia wriggled, trying to move herself away. Pain shot down her back.

‘No!‘ she said, and her voice felt as if it was breaking through lips swollen with sores; her nasal passage was dry, her throat was hurting. ‘No ... please, no sedative.’

‘Hold her still, nurse.’

‘No!’ Julia said again, and with all the strength she could find she managed to wrench her arm away, and fold it defensively across her stomach. ‘I’m all right ... please don’t sedate me.’

The doctor, whom Julia recognized as Trowbridge, took hold of her wrist again as if he were about to pull her arm forcibly away, but then he looked closely into her eyes.

‘Do you know your name?’ he said.

‘Of course ... it’s Julia Stretton.’

‘Do you remember where you’ve been?’

‘Inside the Wessex projection.’

‘All right, he still.’ He released her wrist, and passed the hypodermic back to the nurse. ‘Find Dr Eliot,’ he said to the nurse, ‘and tell him Miss Stretton has apparent recall.’

The nurse hurried away.

‘Can you move your head, Julia? Try it very slowly.’

She made to raise her head from its support, but as soon as she did a sharp pain snatched at her neck.

‘The electrodes are still in contact,’ Dr Trowbridge said, ‘I’ll ease you away.’

He leaned over her and took both her shoulders in his hands. Moving her a fraction of an inch at a time he raised one of her shoulder-blades, and so lifted her away from the electrodes on that side. By the time he had done this Dr Eliot had arrived, and together the two men lifted her painfully away from the needles. Soon, she was sitting up in the drawer, her head down between her knees, while one of the doctors dabbed the inflamed area of her neck and spine with a soothing ointment Somebody put a blanket over her, and she hugged it around her.

As awareness grew in her, and she realized what had been happening, Julia felt a conflict of intense emotions: anger and confusion, mixed with the pain. Her fury was directed at Paul; how he had interfered with the projection, how he had distorted the world of Wessex, how he had so effectively intruded and destroyed. Confusion, because the projection hall was crowded with people, most of them medical staff. Peering up between her knees she saw somebody being wheeled way on a trolley, with two orderlies holding oxygen equipment alongside. Another person was being carried away on a stretcher, and while Julia’s neck was still being treated she heard Dr Eliot’s name called, and he walked quickly away.

But above all this, through her suppressed rage, Julia held a memory of David. In spite of everything, Paul and his insane distortions, and all the changes in Wessex he had wrought, David was the same.

‘David? Is David out?’ she said.

‘David Harkman? He’s not here at the moment.’ Dr Trowbridge pushed her head down between her knees again. ‘Keep still.’

‘I’ve got to talk to someone,’ she said. ‘Please…’

‘You can speak to Dr Eliot. In a moment.’

‘But at least tell me what’s happening here.’

‘There’s a full-scale emergency. Something must have happened to the projection, because everyone’s returning at once.’

Dr Trowbridge’s name was called, and he left Julia with the lint lying loosely on her neck.

Under his strict injunction not to move, Julia was unable to watch what was happening, but she listened to him speaking to two of the nurses a short distance away. She heard her name mentioned several times, and ‘no apparent traumata’, and ‘we haven’t tested her motor functions, but they seem normal’, and ‘as soon as Dr Eliot is free he’ll have to speak to her.’

A nurse finished cleaning and dressing her neck, and while this was going on Julia tried again to look to either side of her. She was still sitting up on the surface of the drawer, and her view was obstructed by the many people moving around her, but it seemed to her that most of the drawers were open. She was trying to discover whether David’s had been opened yet, but it was too difficult to see.

The nurse fixed the lint in place with some sticking-plaster across her shoulder-blades. ‘That’s finished, Miss Stretton. Remove the dressing tomorrow.’

‘May I get down now?’

The nurse looked across to where Dr Trowbridge was leaning over somebody lying on a trolley. ‘Has the doctor released you yet?’

‘No ... but I feel all right.’

‘Let me see you move your arms.’

Julia flexed her muscles, and turned her wrists, and apart from the customary stiffness after retrieval there seemed no difficulty.

‘I’ll find you an orderly,’ the nurse said.

At that moment, Julia saw a small group of people come into the room.

‘There’s Marilyn,’ she said. ‘She’ll help me.’

Marilyn spotted her before the nurse could beckon, and the girl called out her name and walked quickly across the room to her.

‘John Eliot said you were all right!‘ she said, and kissed Julia on the cheek. ‘What happened to the projection, Julia? Do you know?’

‘Yes, I saw it all.’

‘You can remember it then?’

‘Of course I can.’

‘Julia, something terrible has gone wrong with the others. They’re suffering from amnesia.’

‘But ... how?’ Julia said.

‘We don’t know. There’s been such a rush. Everyone was returning at once. And one after another, none of them has had any memory of who they are, where they’ve been, what’s happening to them now. Most of them are being taken to Dorchester General Hospital, but a few have gone to Bincombe House. And amnesia is the least of the problems. Dr Eliot says he suspects brain-damage in some cases, and Don Mander has had a stroke.’

Julia stared up at her in horror. ‘What on earth has happened?’

‘No one knows. You’re probably the only one who can tell us.’ She looked at Marilyn, thinking of David inside the projector.

‘Is David out yet, David Harkman?’

‘I don’t think so ... wait a minute, I’ll check.’

Marilyn went over to Dr Trowbridge and spoke briefly to him. ‘No, he’s still in the projection,’ she said when she returned. ‘Marilyn, help me down. I’ve got to speak to John Eliot.’

She put an arm round the other girl’s neck, and lowered her feet to the floor. She stood up, supporting her weight on

Marilyn, but after a few seconds of uncertainty found that she could manage on her own. She leant against the metal wall of the nearest cabinet, clutching the blanket around her.

‘Who else is still in the projection, Marilyn?’

‘Just one other ... Paul Mason.’

Julia remembered the brightly lit hall, a future analogue of this one. She remembered Paul’s mania and his threats ... and she thought of David alone with Paul, in Wessex.

She shook her head weakly, not knowing whether she wanted David to stay there with him ... or return to this. He had now been inside the projection for more than two years; what the physiological effects would be on him when he returned were too horrid to contemplate, and never mind the amnesia Marilyn had spoken of. Brain-damage, strokes ... did these await him on his return?

She felt an almost uncontrollable urge to climb back on her drawer, to pull herself inside the cabinet ... to return to the future.

‘Are you all right, Julia?’

She opened her eyes, saw Marilyn standing beside her.

‘Yes ... I’m just a little cold.’

‘Let’s see if we can find your clothes.’

‘A surgical gown will do. I must talk to Eliot.’

They walked together through the hall, then had to stand to one side as another trolley was wheeled out. As it passed, Julia tried to see who was on it, but an oxygen-mask was being held over the person’s face. Knowing it was one of the participants, a sharer of her private world, Julia felt a sense of close identification. She wanted to know who it was, but she couldn’t even see whether it was a man or a woman. She turned away, looked at the wall until the trolley had passed out of sight.

As they reached the main corridor, Eliot appeared from one of the rooms.

‘Julia!’ he said. ‘Have you been examined?’

‘Yes, I’m all right.’

‘Thank God for that! You do have total recall?’

‘To the last detail,’ she said, thinking of the grim ironies of those details.

‘Come to my office as soon as you’ve dressed. We must find out what went wrong.’

‘Paul Mason went wrong,’ she said, but it was to herself. She and Marilyn went to the cubicle she used for changing in. The clothes she had been wearing were still there, but a feeling of transience that she wished to preserve turned her away from them. A considerable part of herself was still in Wessex, still with David. Until he was back safely she wouldn’t feel safe or permanent in the present.

There was a surgical gown folded up in the cupboard, and she put this on.

They went to Eliot’s office immediately, because Julia was anxious for news of what had been happening ... but all Eliot told her was what she had already heard. The participants had been returning for the last two hours; all, except her, had suffered chronic mental or nervous disturbance. She was the last to return so far.

‘Of course, this must mean the end of the projection,’ Eliot said. ‘I cannot imagine any circumstances under which it could be revived now.’

‘But what about David?’ Julia said at once.

‘The projector will have to be kept in operation, of course. At least until he and Mason are retrieved.’

‘Is there any attempt being made to get them out?’

Eliot shook his head. ‘I can’t allow anyone inside now.’

He told her that three of the trustees would be arriving in Dorchester the next day, to take over the supervision of the projector.

Julia, listening to this, was experiencing the uncanny overlap of realities that always followed a retrieval. Nothing had changed: there were still trustees, and there was still a Foundation. Outside the Castle there was the twentieth century and the world she knew, and it awaited her inevitable return.

But this world was no longer hers. She had ceased to be an organic part of the real world from the day she had first entered the projection. She belonged to the future; life could never again be stable except in the Wessex of her mind.