Dancers at the End of Time (31 page)

Although Mr. Wells's spirits seemed to have lifted considerably after he had left the Café Royale, he did not speak much until they had left the cab and were safely seated in a second class carriage which smelled strongly of smoke. At the ticket office Jherek had been embarrassed when he was expected to pay for his fare, but Wells, generously supposing him to have no English money, had paid for them both.

Now he sat panting in one corner while Jherek sat opposite him in the other. Jherek took a wondering curiosity in the furnishings of the carriage. They were not at all as he had imagined them. He noted little stains and tears in the upholstery and assured himself that he would reproduce them faithfully at the next opportunity.

"I am extremely grateful to you, Mr. Wells. I had begun to wonder if I should ever find Bromley."

"You have friends there, have you?"

"One friend, yes. A lady. Perhaps you know her?"

"I know one or two people still, in Bromley."

"Mrs. Amelia Underwood?"

Mr. Wells frowned, shook his head and began to pack tobacco into his pipe. "No, I'm afraid not.

What part does she live in?"

"Her address is 23 Collins Avenue."

"Ah, yes. One of the newer streets. Bromley's expanded a lot since I was a lad."

"You know the street?"

"I think so, yes. I'll put you on your way, don't worry." Mr. Wells sat back with his eyes twinkling.

"Typical of old Harris to confuse you with someone else he'd never met. For some reason he hates to admit that he doesn't know someone. As a result he claims to know people he's absolutely no acquaintance with, they hear that he's spoken of them as if they were his dearest friends, get offended and won't have anything to do with him!" Mr. Wells's voice was high-pitched, bubbling, animated. "I'm inclined to be a bit in awe of him, none the less. He's ruined half-a-dozen papers, but still publishes some of the best stuff in London — and he gave me a chance I needed. You write for the French papers do you, Mr. Carnelian?"

"Well, no…" said Jherek, anxious not to have a repetition of his previous experience, when he had told the absolute truth and had been thoroughly disbelieved. "I travel a little."

"In England?"

"Oh, yes."

"And where have you visited so far?"

"Just the 19th century," said Jherek.

Mr. Wells plainly thought he had misheard Jherek, then his smile broadened. "You've read my book!" he said ebulliently. "You travel in time, do you, sir?"

"I do," said Jherek, relieved to be taken seriously for once.

"And you have a time machine?" Mr. Wells's eyes twinkled again.

"Not now," Jherek told him. "In fact, I'm looking for one, for I won't be able to use the method by which I arrived, to return. I'm from the future, you see, not the past."

"I see," said Mr. Wells gravely. The train had begun to move off. Jherek looked at identical smoke-grimed roof after identical smoke-grimed roof illumined by the gas-lamps.

"The houses all seem to be very similar and closely packed," he said. "They're rather different to those I saw earlier."

"Near the Café Royale? Yes, well you won't have slums in your age, of course."

"Slums?" said Jherek. "I don't think so." He was enjoying the jogging motion of the train. "This is great fun."

"Not quite like your monorails, eh?" said Mr. Wells.

"No," said Jherek politely. "Do you know Mr. Jackson, Mr. Wells? The man who left when I arrived."

"I've seen him once or twice. Had the odd chat with him. He seems interesting. But I visit the 
Saturday Review
's offices very infrequently — usually when Harris insists on it. He needs to 
see
 his contributors from time to time, to establish their reality, I think." Mr. Wells smiled in anticipation of his next remark. "Or perhaps to establish his own."

"You don't know where he lives in London?"

"You'll have to ask Harris that, I'm afraid."

"I'm not sure I'll have the chance now. As soon as I find Mrs. Underwood we'll have to start looking for a time machine. Would you know where to find one, Mr. Wells?"

Mr. Wells's reply was mysterious. "In here," he said, tapping his forehead with his pipestem. "That's where I found mine."

"You built your own?"

"You could say that."

"They are not common in this period, then?"

"Not at all common. Indeed, some critics have accused me of being altogether too imaginative in my claims. They consider my inventions not sufficiently rooted in reality."

"So time machines are just starting to catch on?"

"Well, mine seems to be catching on quite well. I'm beginning to get quite satisfactory results, although very few people expected it to go at first."

"You wouldn't be prepared to build me one, would you, Mr. Wells?"

"I'm afraid I'm more of a theorist than a practical scientist," Mr. Wells told him. "But if you build one and have any success, be sure to let me know."

"The only one I travelled in broke. There was evidence, by the way, to suggest that it came from a period two thousand years before this one. So perhaps you are actually 
re
-discovering time travel."

"What a splendid notion, Mr. Carnelian. It's rare for me to meet someone with your particular quality of imagination. You should write the idea into a story for your Parisian readers. You'd be a rival to M. Verne in no time!"

Jherek hadn't quite followed him. "I can't write," he said. "Or read."

"No true Eloi should be able to read or write." Mr. Wells puffed on his pipe, peering out of the window. The train now ran past wider-spaced houses in broader streets as if some force at the centre of the city had the power to condense the buildings, as clay is condensed by centrifugal force as it is whirled on the potter's wheel. Jherek was hard put to think of any explanation and finally dismissed the problem.

How, after all, could he expect to understand Dawn Age aesthetics as it were overnight?

"It's a shame you aren't doing my translations, M. Carnelian, you'd do a better job, I suspect, than some. You could even improve on the existing books!"

Again unable to follow the animated words of the young man, Jherek Carnelian gave up, merely nodding.

"Still, it wouldn't do to let oneself get too far-fetched, I suppose," Mr. Wells said thoughtfully.

"People often ask me where I get my incredible ideas. They think I'm deliberately sensational. They don't seem to realize that the ideas seem very 
ordinary
 to me."

"Oh, they seem exceptionally ordinary to me, also!" said Jherek, eager to agree.

"Do you think so?" piped. H. G. Wells a little coldly.

"Here we are, Mr. Carnelian. This is your fabulous Bromley. We seem to be the only visitors at this time of night." Mr. Wells opened the carriage door and stepped out onto the platform. The station was lit by oil-lamps which flickered in a faint breeze. At the far end of the train a man in uniform put a whistle to his lips and blew a shrill blast, waving a green flag. Mr. Wells closed the door behind them and the train began to move out of the station. They walked past boxes full of flowers, past a white-painted fence, until they came to the exit. Here an old man accepted the tickets Mr. Wells handed him. They crossed the station precinct and entered a street full of two-story houses. A few gas-lamps lit the street. From somewhere nearby a horse trotted past. A couple of children were playing around one of the lamps.

Jherek and Mr. Wells turned a corner.

"This is the High Street," Mr. Wells informed him. "I was born here, you know. It hasn't changed that much, though Bromley itself has expanded. It's pretty much a suburb of London now."

"Ah," murmured Jherek.

"There's Medhurst's," Mr. Wells pointed towards a darkened shop-front, "and that's where Atlas House used to be. It was never much of a success, my father's china shop. There's the old 
Bell
, where most of the profits were spent. Cooper's the tailors, seems to have gone out of business. Woodall's fish-shop…" He chuckled. "For a time, you know, this was Heaven for me. Then it was Hell. Now, it's merely Purgatory."