Out of Time (10 page)

‘Who?’

Randolph looked at him in surprise.

‘You escaped them. You know who they are.’

He looked at him accusingly.

At last, the explanation Joe had been seeking.

‘The townspeople,’ he said now, ‘they chased me with nets.’

‘Yes.’

It was clear from his tone that Randolph knew.

‘I don’t know why.’

‘Don’t know what?’

‘Why they chased me.’

‘Because you’re young.’

It was said as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

‘That’s why they’re after us, here?’

‘It will be winter soon. That’s when they come.’

‘Why in the winter?’

‘Don’t you know anything?’

‘No.’

Randolph shook his head.

‘Because the landscape is bare and you can see for miles. And we have to burn fires. Fires make smoke, smoke is a signal. And when it snows we leave tracks.’

‘Do they know we are here?’

‘Sometimes they find us, sometimes they don’t,’ Randolph said.

‘How long have you been here?’

‘Almost four hundred years.’

Not long. Aristocratic families back home reached back some seven centuries.

The business of tree-felling was more complicated than Joe had imagined. Randolph chose an oak, five foot in diameter, leaning slightly towards the ground. They laboriously removed large rocks and protruding obstacles from the fall path. This done Randolph showed Joe how to make three cuts, one diagonal and then horizontal on one side of the tree, a second horizontal almost to meet the second cut.

As soon as they heard the tree creaking as it started its descent Randolph pulled Joe away, well out of reach.

‘Easy to get killed,’ he said.

With gathering momentum, it toppled into place with a thud so mighty the ground trembled.

They lobbed the branches off, working until the sun was sinking.

‘I’ll use them to camouflage the roof,’ Randolph said.

‘And the trunk?’

‘The oxen will haul it down.’

Joe assumed it would be used for firewood and, coming from a culture that had learned to value trees, felt a sense of pity for such waste for it was an old, majestic oak, reaching back into history. He had aided its downfall with mixed feelings. Randolph, intuitive, said,

‘Can you carve in wood?’

Joe had never been aware of artistic leanings.

While he was competent at drawing and painting, he had never considered taking up any form of creative endeavour either as a hobby or a career. His future plans were unfocussed, advice from career masters hollow and meaningless. Yet he suspected that an undeclared ambition lurked in the shadows. Too indifferent to tease it out he had let it lie, sensing that it would declare itself. This perhaps it had now done. The carvings in the long room had filled him with wonder and a yearning to fashion wood. He could imagine nothing more satisfying.

Randolph noted the look of excitement on the boy’s face and wondered once again who he was. Joe was an aberration, fitting into no known mould. They could not place him, no matter how hard they tried and this made them wary. The group lived in a hostile world, clinging precariously to their existence and Joe unsettled them, made them fearful that they were harbouring a cuckoo in the nest.

‘No, will you teach me?’ Joe asked.

Was there a hidden purpose lurking behind this artless question? Should he prevaricate, guard the ancient art that had been handed down; but Randolph had not the heart to refuse him.

‘I’ll save you a piece from this oak,’ he said.

Unaware of Randolph’s dilemma, Joe looked at him with gratitude and pleased surprise, unused as he had become to spontaneous gestures of friendship. Perhaps the feasting and the breaking of bonds between them, would herald a new relationship. His spirits soared at the prospect but Randolph was embarrassed by Joe’ enthusiasm, open as it was to contradictory interpretations.

They bundled up as much brushwood as they could drag by hand and proceeded back to the house. Life resumed its normal pattern of work and sleep.

From the sparse information Randolph had given him one thing at least was clear. The townspeople were the enemy, both of his companions and himself. This Randolph had stated with such an utter lack of ambiguity, that Joe could take it as reliable fact. Further, Randolph had supplied a reason. The townspeople wanted to kill him, and presumably them, because they were young.

Why?

Impossible to answer, possible only to treat the question as he had treated the many other insolubles - put it away, wait until someone, somewhere, offered an explanation.

In a corner of the cobbled yard Joe discovered a disused stable that housed big blocks of wood, ready to be transformed by a skilled hand. An ancient wooden bench, on which various appliances were screwed, took up the whole of one side. A large treadle grindstone stood beside it. On a bench opposite lay, in immaculate order, an array of chisels, gouges, saws, rasps, files and knives of many kinds and sizes; all with the worn look of tools that had experienced years of usage. They looked inviting. Joe longed to get his hands on them. He waited impatiently for an opportunity to remind Randolph of his promise.

The first frosts hardened the ground, the sheep were brought down from the hills.

‘What do we feed them on in winter?’

‘Mainly hay.’

‘The cows as well?’

‘Hay, maize and worzels when we’ve grown them. It depends on the crop rotation. Sometimes we have to slaughter, if the winter is long and we run out.’

The group’s recent animation had given way to a quiet thoughtfulness that made Joe wonder with a sinking heart if they were going to revert to their previous silence. He sensed, as the winter closed in, a growing tension in the atmosphere.

*

The two prisoners either side of the wall have, with the desperation brought on by their confinement, evolved a rudimentary language. One loud knock means a guard is coming, two that they are free to communicate, three stands for girl, four for boy. Short and long and the strength of each knock have their respective meanings. It is a hit and miss affair but Susie has at least learned that her neighbour is called Rose and that she is fourteen years old and has been in prison even longer than Susie. Neither knows when or indeed if they will be released.

Susie has asked if Rose knows where her parents are but Rose has no other neighbour and no news.

One morning the unexpected happens. Susie’s grim guard speaks to her. But what she has to communicate is brief and alarming.

‘Your trial is being convened,’ she says.

‘When?’ Susie asks but gets no reply.

Susie is uncertain what this means but she hopes it will give her a chance to see her parents. She taps her news to Rose but this time there is no reply. This leaves Susie devastated. Rose has been her mainstay, now she has gone and Susie has no idea where to. Is she alive or have they killed her?

Susie sits in a corner, her arms wrapped round her drawn-up knees, and rocks gently.

*

‘Meeting tonight,’ Otto said. Joe suspected from the prevailing mood that something serious was on the agenda, perhaps laying down plans against the hardships of the coming winter and a possible raid from the townspeople. He hoped they would allow him to contribute more than hard labour. He wanted above all to be in their confidence.

‘Who is on watch?’ he asked experimentally, needing to know if this meeting was valued sufficiently to dispense with guard duty. He had not been allowed to take part in the night watch rota when it was resumed, again for reasons he could not fathom; only that they still did not trust him.

The evening meal was cleared away, the shutters were put in place and the lamps lit. Otto sat at one end of the table, Joe opposite, Kathryn to his immediate left, Belinda next to her. Randolph and Meredith sat opposite the two girls. For a time nobody spoke and Joe felt the tension mount. As his gaze slid over the faces round him, touched by the flickering light, he realised with a shock that all were turned towards him. He stared back puzzled, hoping for a lead.

There was none.

He now saw how mistaken he had been. This was no planning meeting. A Star Chamber was in session, an inquisition, and he was in the dock. He felt it in their hushed silence, from their grouping together. Those on either side of him, Kathryn and Randolph, had drawn their chairs closer to their neighbours, leaving him isolated. He looked at them with rising anger and fear. How unpredictable they were, friends one moment, enemies the next. Were they expecting him to say something? The blood was drumming in his ears and his fists were tightly clenched.

Only then did Otto speak.

‘We want to know the truth. We want to know where you come from. We want to know what you are doing here.’

WHERE did he come from? They could not, would not believe him and might think him mad.

He looked at Otto, the sole witness to his unwavering loyalty when it was most needed. Otto looked away. Joe turned to Randolph, with whom he thought he had developed a steady relationship, cemented by the felling of the tree and his promise to teach him to carve but Randolph regarded him with cold indifference.

Belinda? Troubled and uncomprehending as though a favourite toy had been broken.

Kathryn? Her eyes were lowered, her body slumped in her chair as though wishing it were anywhere but here.

He tried to speak but the words would not emerge and it was only after a long, expectant pause that he said,

‘I used to live in Bantage.’

Joe hoped that this would satisfy but a conspiratorial look went round the table, his answer confirming every suspicion the group had ever harboured. This boy, in an unusually cunning move, had been planted by the townspeople to spy on them.

Randolph and Meredith sprang to their feet, stepping threateningly towards Joe. Violence he had not expected and his fists went up in self-defence. His Furies hovered.

‘Don’t threaten me!’

‘Then tell the truth.’

‘That’s what I’m doing, you stupid sods. Telling you what happened, trying to make you understand. I come from Bantage, I was born there, lived there but it’s not the Bantage you know. It’s another Bantage, different. At least the people are…’

How was he to explain?

‘Don’t lie to us!’

‘I’m trying to tell the fucking truth!’ Joe shouted back.

Meredith and Randolph closed in on him. The Furies descended. Joe landed a forceful punch on Meredith’s stomach and an upper cut on Randolph’s chin. Both reeled back in shock and surprise and then attacked from either side. Joe brought up his knee and caught Meredith in the groin, crippling him but Randolph seized his arms and, despite Joe’s frantic struggles, pinioned them back.

‘Who knows you are here?’

‘No one. I wish they did.’

‘When did the liaison with the townspeople begin?’

‘There is no liaison with the townspeople.’

‘Who kept you informed while you lived in the cave?’

‘I saw no one until I met Randolph - and wish I hadn’t. It’s you who are traitors and hypocrites, all of you, pretending to be friendly and now this.’

He tried to bite the imprisoning arms and kicked backwards with enough force to bring Randolph to his knees but Meredith was on his feet, landing punches on chest and shoulders. Joe staggered sideways and fell.

‘Leave him!’

The sharp command came from Otto who had risen from his seat and towered over them, suddenly an impressively powerful figure, unlike the Otto Joe was used to, puny and weak. Perhaps it was a trick of the light or a measure of his panic but Meredith and Randolph too were cowed and returned to their places. Suddenly deflated, Joe sat down. The questioning resumed.

‘How did you know which direction to take?’

‘I followed the stream.’

‘Who are you working for?’

‘Fuck off!’ he shouted.

*

Helmuth sits high on a dais above the court. He is presiding over yet another trial, now nearing its conclusion. These have become routine for they follow a course long ago laid down by him. All prisoners are either condemned or put to hard labour. He could dispense with these kangaroo courts but it does not suit him. They serve to create the illusion that some kind of justice prevails. Helmuth knows about justice. He used to dispense it a long, long time ago.

The prisoners, Susie, her mother, her father, face him. He looks at them wearily, surprised that once again these insignificant people have the strength to defy him. But not for long. He will crush them as he has crushed all opposition. He is aware that danger lurks in the most unexpected places, plots threatening his position are hatched by even the most cowed citizens.

He begins the routine questioning.

‘From whom did you receive instruction?’

‘I have received no instruction,’ Susie’s father replies.

‘You and your wife acted on your own initiative?’

‘Yes. No one else was involved.’

Susie can hear her parents but she cannot see them. Her head is covered with a grey cowl, no slits for eyes, only a sliver of light seeping past the edges of the muffling cloth. Susie is used to the dark. She has rarely been out in daylight, though this morning, in a moment to be savoured, she was led out of her cell into intoxicating breathfuls of fresh air.