Apocalypso (4 page)

‘I
think my stop’s coming up,’ said Porrig.

‘I
thought you said you were going to Victoria.’

‘I’m
sure I didn’t.’

‘But
you are.’

‘Go on
with your story.’

‘Hard
times,’ said the old one, ‘hard times. Though not without joy. We had no
television sets in those days, we had no electricity, but we made our own
amusements. We would hollow out a dead rat to make a glove puppet, or hold
maggot races, or simply engage in acts of anarchy and arson.’

‘Happy
days,’ said Porrig.

‘Are
you taking the piss?’

‘No, of
course not. Well, just a bit. Perhaps. I mean, what is the point of all this?
It’s just nonsense you’ve made up.’

‘So far
it is, yes. But I’m leading you on to the good bit. Have you ever seen an
angel, Porrig?’

‘How
did you know my name? I never told you my name.’

‘Didn’t
you? Well, I must have just guessed that too, mustn’t I? So have you ever seen
an angel,
Porrig?’

‘Of
course I haven’t. There’s no such thing.’

‘No
such thing as fate. No such thing as angels. What a lot you think you know.
Well, I
have
seen an angel, Porrig. I’ve seen one and I’ve touched one.
So what do you think of that?’

Porrig
eyed the old fellow warily. ‘I’d rather not say,’ he said.

‘Very
wise of you. In our yard.’

‘In
your yard?’

‘In our
yard, up against the cottage wall, was an old lean-to shed. We used to keep the
chickens in it. Rotten, it was and it smelled real bad. Well, one night there
was a big storm, thunder and lightning and winds and roaring rain. We brought
all our livestock into the cottage and the wind tore tiles from the roof and
ripped up trees and blew down the landlord’s barn. People were killed in our
village: a young family who lived in a cellar. The rain flooded down the high
street and through their room and lifted the baby out of its crib and the
parents tried to save it and they were all washed away and drowned. People
could hear their screams above the storm but could do nothing to save them.’

‘Oh,’
said Porrig. ‘This is true, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,
Porrig, this is true. But in the morning after that terrible night, the storm
had blown over and there was peace. There was wreckage everywhere, trees down,
hedges ripped away, dead cows in the fields, and three dead people too, but
they found them later when the water went down. All curled up together, they
were, with their arms about each other.’

‘Oh,’
said Porrig, once more.

‘Yes,
oh. And I remember that light, that first light, when I went outside. Everything
seemed to be different. Clearer somehow, more defined. As if the rain had
washed clean the air, made it like glass. I waded out through the mud to see if
there was anything that could be salvaged. Anything valuable that might have
blown our way. And I found something valuable all right, in fact something
quite beyond value.

‘You
see, somehow the old lean-to had survived the storm. The door was gone but it
was still standing and as I looked inside I could see something odd. Something
sort of glowing. Like a dim lamp, or the light that shines through your fingers
when you cup your hands about a candle. And I leaned in through the doorway and
there, crouched in the corner, was a man. But he was not a man. He was like a
man, but he was too small, the size of a three-year-old child. Perfectly
proportioned though. A miniature man. And he was quite naked as he crouched
there in the corner, shivering, and the light came from him, it shone all about
him, as if he were lit from inside.

‘And
where we have hairs on our bodies, under our arms and on our chests and so on,
he had these tiny feathers, like the soft down on chicks, and on his back and
curled right under him he had wings.

Wings,
Porrig, curved like eagles’ wings, but more complicated somehow, and these wings
were golden, or silvery-golden, and they shone too. They glittered. They were
the wings of an angel.

‘But
this light about him, it sort of came and went. Faded and then came back.
Because he was ill, you see, he was wounded. His wings were wounded. The
feathers were all broken at the bottom. And the smell of him. How I remember
that smell.’

‘That
smell?’

‘The
smell of lilacs. The odour of sanctity, it’s called. The perfume that issues
from the incorruptible bodies of the saints. Sanctity, you see, perfection, it
has its own smell. Not like anything in this world, this world where everything
corrupts and dies. Not like ordinary lilacs, oh no.

‘And I
stared down at this tiny naked man with the wings, this angel, and he looked
back at me with his eyes so pale and pleading, but he didn’t speak. I don’t
know if he could speak. Perhaps they don’t. Perhaps there are no words in the
perfection of heaven. Perhaps words themselves are corrupt. Perhaps to put a
name to anything given by God, to label it with a word, perhaps that is
blasphemy.

‘But
though he didn’t speak, I knew that he was begging me, begging me to protect
him and not let him be seen. You see, somehow, in that great storm, he had
fallen to Earth. I don’t know how it happened, he never told me, because he
never spoke, but somehow he let me know that he had come for the souls of that
poor family who died. Come to take their souls to paradise.’

Porrig’s
mouth was open, but no words came from it.

‘I
nursed him,’ said the old fellow. ‘I hid him and I nursed him. I kept him
secret in the old lean-to. I brought him out a blanket and I fed him milk. He
didn’t drink it like we do, he held it in the palms of his hands and it
evaporated, or sank into the skin, or something.

‘So I
looked after him and I protected him. I straightened out the feathers on his
wings as best I could. There was this dust on the broken ones, this light dust
that came off on my fingers when I touched them. And the smell was on that dust
and on my fingers and all through the day, when I sat at school in the
classroom, I could smell that smell. I would sit there and sniff my fingers and
smell that marvellous perfume.’

Porrig
looked at the old man. His face was shining and there were tears in his eyes.

‘Go on,’
said Porrig. ‘Go on with your story.’

‘He
went,’ said the old fellow, ‘upped and went. One day I got home from school and
he’d gone. Without a word of goodbye, or of thank you.’

‘But he
never spoke.’

‘I
would have known, he would have let me know. But he was gone, just gone. I
searched all over the place, and I cried, I can tell you. I sat there in that
old lean-to and I wept. But I never saw him again. I don’t know what happened
to him.’

‘He was
well again,’ said Porrig. ‘So he had gone to… you know.’

‘To
perfection. He had gone back to perfection. But he left me with something.’

‘He
did?’

‘Oh
yes. But then, no, he did not. I took it, you see. I know now that I shouldn’t
have and I know now that I must return it to him. Find him and return it. I
must do that, I know.’

‘I don’t
understand what you’re talking about.’

‘While
he slept,’ said the old one. ‘He slept a lot at first, while he was so very
ill. And while he slept I took it. Just a little piece to carry with me, so I
could smell that marvellous perfume. I didn’t think it would matter.’

‘A
little piece of what? What did you take?’

‘A
piece of a feather from his broken wing. I’ve kept it with me ever since. Until
the day comes when I can return it to him.’

The old
fellow slipped a wizened hand beneath his jacket and delved into the pocket of
his tweedy waistcoat. From here he drew out an old snuff box. It was a shallow
ebony cylinder, perhaps an inch and a half in diameter, shining with a rich
patina.

‘I
bought this box brand new,’ said the old fellow. ‘Saved up my pennies and bought
it. To keep my treasure in. And I’ve carried it with me ever since. Would you
like to see what’s in it, Porrig?’

Porrig
stared at the box and then into the eyes of the old man. What was all this, he
asked himself. Some elaborate hoax? Some almighty wind-up? The old man’s
foolish talk and then this incredible tale that he told with such conviction.
Could such a tale be really true? And if it was, what would it mean? A feather
from an angel’s wing?

The
sunlight flickered through the window and the carriage wheels click-clacked on
the track beneath. But somehow here, here in this compartment, there was
silence. And stillness.

And
sanctity.

‘You
may see it,’ said the old man. ‘Although you may not touch it, you may see it.’
He held the box forward and his ancient fingers lightly brushed the polished
lid. And Porrig saw that on that lid there was a date engraved in silver.
Engraved when the box was new, in the year that the old man had bought it.

And the
year engraved upon that lid was 1837.

‘That
is my fate,’ said the old man. ‘I will not die. I cannot die, until I have
returned what I have stolen, do you understand?’

And
gently, gently, he unscrewed the lid.

‘You gotta get out now,
love. The train don’t go no further.’

Porrig
jerked up on his seat, eyes blinking.

A large
Jamaican lady in the costume of a cleaner smiled down upon him. ‘Sorry to have
to wake you up, love. But it’s the end of the line, Victoria, and I gotta clean
the compartment.’

Porrig
gaped all about. But for the smiling cleaner he was all alone.

‘Did
you see an old man?’ Porrig asked. ‘Getting off the train? He was sitting just
there and—’

‘I see
lots of people. Thousands of people. One old man’s much the same as another.’

‘Not
this one.’ Porrig shook his head and clicked at his jaw. ‘Never mind,’ he said,
as he dragged himself to his feet. ‘It was just a mad dream or something.’ And
he pulled down his suitcase from the rack and turned to take his leave.

‘You
look after yourself,’ said the cleaner. ‘You mind how you go.’

‘I
will,’ said Porrig, climbing down from the tram.

‘And,
love,’ called the cleaner.

‘Yes?’

‘That’s
a real pretty aftershave you’re wearing. It fills up all the compartment. It
smells just like lilacs, it does.’

4

It was a somewhat ashen
Porrig who boarded the Brighton-bound train. A chastened Porrig. A quiet one.
He took himself off to the buffet car and ordered a cup of coffee.

‘Not
till the train leaves the station,’ the attendant told him. ‘And that goes for
the bog too.’

Porrig
sat down in the nearest compartment and waited for the train to leave. He was
confused, Porrig was. Confused and upset. He didn’t know what to believe. He
knew he had met the old man. The old man had held the door open for him: he’d
have missed the train otherwise. But how much of the rest had been real?

Probably
only the first part. The stupid story about hollowed-out rats and maggot races.
He must have dreamed the rest. Fallen asleep and dreamed it. And the smell of
lilacs? Well,
he
hadn’t actually smelled that himself. But perhaps it
had wafted into the carriage from the outside and he’d smelled it in his sleep
and sort of incorporated it into the dream.

That
all made sense. After a fashion.

That’s
how Scully would have figured it out. Though possibly not Mulder.

Satisfied
that it did all make sense, after a fashion, Porrig returned to the buffet car,
for the train was now leaving the station. Here he was met by an unruly scrum
fighting for attention at the counter. Porrig went back to his seat.

The
train rushed forward, passing by houses and streets, houses and streets,
further houses and further streets. Porrig looked out at them and wondered, as
many have before him, just who were all these people who lived in these houses
and drove along these streets. There were so many of them, all going about
their daily lives, their ordinary lives. These people didn’t meet angels, they
just went to the shops and watched television and brought up children who did
just the same. That was the real way of it; that was how it really was.

At
length the scrum cleared and Porrig was able to get himself coffee and
something that vaguely resembled a roll. And the train rushed on to Brighton
and Porrig rushed on with it.

Brighton
Station is still a thing of wonder and beauty: a triumph of Victorian ironwork,
curving for a quarter of a mile. The great arched roof, with its countless
skylights and its many pigeons, echoes with life. It’s a Grade Two listed
building, but it could use a lick of paint. Porrig humped his suit case across
the concourse and out to the rank where the taxis, distinctively tasteless in
their pale blue and white livery, stood, surrounded by another unruly scrum.