Out of Time (15 page)

‘You’re very talented, like my father.’

‘Your father? Was he a wood carver?’

‘Yes, he carved all the wood in this house.’

‘Even the mantelpiece in the long room?’

‘Especially the mantelpiece in the long room.’

‘Am I using his tools?’

‘Yes.’

They contained his magic, of this Joe was convinced. He could feel it through his fingertips.

One evening Joe launched into ‘When I’m Sixty Four’. It was the first time he had sung them a Beatles song and they were enchanted by it and hummed along with him but when he got to ‘sixty four’ he caught a conspiratorial look between Kathryn and Randolph. It made him angry and resentful. He was still excluded from the group’s most intimate secrets, and it hurt. He stopped playing

‘What was all that about?’ he asked later when he and Kathryn were alone.

‘What was what about?’

‘You and Randolph exchanging significant looks when I sang the Beatles song.’

‘Joe,’ she said, ‘I asked you to wait.’

‘I’ve waited. You still don’t trust me!’

‘It’s nothing to do with trust.’

‘What then?’

She turned away.

It was the closest they had come to an argument. He did not sing ‘When I get older’ again but he was puzzled. Of the many songs in his repertoire, this was the least controversial. It was about love, nothing else. He could not imagine why it should have been singled out for special consideration but supposed he would eventually be told. The group would have finally to reveal this great secret of theirs.

He thought he might ask Randolph during the many hours they worked together at their carvings but never quite dared. It felt too much like going behind Kathryn’s back. So he kept quiet. He was, in any case, often alone in the shed which, in many ways, he preferred. As he cut, gouged and sculpted, drawing from the wood the life it yielded, the power of creation absorbed him utterly.

Better able now to appreciate the technical skill that had gone into the making of the mantelpiece in the long room, he returned one morning to look at it again. The murky light obscured the finer points of the carving so Joe, ignoring the snow and wind outside, forced open a shutter. He studied the masterly handiwork, as intricate in its own way as the patterned ice Kathryn had presented to him the first morning it froze. Kneeling on the floor he passed his hands over the shining wood and as he bent down to take a closer look at the protruding head of a snake he noticed that one of the wooden panels on the wall concealed a door. Curious, he pulled on a small flat handle cunningly made almost invisible and was astonished to find, in this bookless house, two thick leather-bound volumes, dry and dusty with age. He gently pulled one out and opened it at random to reveal a cursive hand-written script on thick paper, the edges rough as he had seen them on old manuscripts. The text was difficult though not impossible to decipher. The title page, written in a bold dark blue, bore the legend, The History of My People.

As if by some prearranged signal, Randolph walked in. Joe started guiltily as though caught in an illicit act but Randolph nodded approvingly and said,

‘You’d better read those.’

Joe took away the first volume.

Written in the form of a story, it related the history of a people that had lived in England long ago; no dates were specified but the analysis of the society it depicted was detailed and exact, enumerating the many villages - there was no mention of towns or larger conurbations - spread over the country. These enjoyed a peaceful existence without precedent in Joe’s knowledge of history, an Arcadia without wars, battles, kings, queens or prelates. People lived simply, apparently with few laws and little necessity to enforce them

Each village, surrounded by an ample acreage of pasture and arable land and in some places by mineral deposits like coal and iron ore, was self sufficient in its most basic needs and could survive if necessary as an independent entity. Trading existed, conducted without money on an ancient and unchanging barter system. Travellers journeyed from village to village in the spring and summer months, bringing goods and produce from all over the country, their arrival the occasion for elaborate celebrations. There was no discernible class system. The villages were run on a democratic rather than a hierarchical structure. Every villager had the same status regardless of function, whether he cleaned sewers or arbitrated disputes. Women were considered equal to men, held the same rights and were eligible in a universal franchise in the election of leader, a post held for five years.

There were other details but Joe skated over them and other pages that, like the Egyptian hieroglyphs, detailed the individual worth of animals and produce, balancing one against the other. Joe learned that one cow was the value of four sheep, certain ornaments for women were worth two chickens, dried salt cod was weighed against eggs, on and on for many pages. What emerged clearly was that the system was stable and could be maintained despite seasonal variations of supply. The mantra of constant economic growth did not apply.

Nature was nourished, sustained and worshipped in a pragmatic way, with festivals and celebrations as the year turned. Plant and animal breeding was sophisticated though for goals different from those in Joe’s world. Instead of heavy high yielders, animals were bred for hardiness. Cattle and sheep stayed outdoors all the year round unless conditions were severe.

Schools were rare, though not unknown. Generally it was the task of parents to teach their children the rudiments of literacy and to put them through an apprenticeship whether for farming or a specialised skill like carpentry or mining. Most children entered the same sphere of work as their parents, acquiring experience as they grew up.

The villagers appeared to be satisfied with their lives and were neither constantly striving for more than they had nor jostling for position, for none had cause to feel oppressed. The book was a paean of praise for what Joe perceived as a primitive, pastoral society, an idealised, stable version of an England without conflict or expansion, picturesque but unattainable. With his twenty-first century cynicism Joe suspected a far rougher reality. Diplomatically, for he sensed he was treading on sensitive ground, he allowed some of his scepticism to show through.

‘Are these legends?’ he asked the assembled company one evening.

‘No.’

‘True?’

‘All of it.’

‘It’s so perfect. Not a bit like now.’

‘You’ll see in the next volume. It didn’t last. Not forever.’

‘We acquired too much knowledge,’ Otto said

‘Too much knowledge?’

‘Yes.’

Of what? They knew nothing compared even to an eighteen year old like himself - no maths, no physics, no electronics and no science. These people were in the Dark Ages. He could help them, teach them whatever science and medicine he knew. He would transform their mode of living, offer them at least some of the benefits of his own century. He saw himself no longer as an intruder but as a saviour and later eagerly told Kathryn all he had planned. He was surprised at her lack of enthusiasm but assumed it was impossible for her to understand the benefits he was offering.

*

Susie is convinced that her parents are dead but she is mistaken. They are still alive, shut up in solitary, windowless cells.

They are interrogated relentlessly about the boy in the park, sometimes together, sometimes apart. The junta think that he is the leader of a plot to overthrow the government and are trying to make Susie’s parents give them information about him but this Susie’s parents cannot do for they did not see him. At first they proclaim their innocence but soon realise that as long as the interrogators believe that they have more information to give they will be kept alive.

Although it is difficult to be consistent as often one does not know what the other has said, they succeed in fooling their interrogators for a while. They make up stories about Joe, giving out spurious pieces of information one at a time. They claim that he has come from far away but they do not know from where. They say that they have never met him and only heard about him but this earns them a beating because they were seen coming with him from the park. They then pretend that they tried to get information from him but he refused to give any; but they did discover that he came from the far north and spoke with a strange accent that was difficult to understand. Finally, they make up a weird tale that he has come from another land, another planet. This is too much even for the credulous chiefs.

The interrogations stop and they are left in prison, sustained only by a minimum of food and water and hope, the hope that they will once again see their daughter.

*

Blizzards and snowstorms succeeded one another in a relentless cycle. The animals suffered most. One morning Kathryn found one of the heifers lying on her side, unable to rise. Another stood with her head down, eyes half shut, ribs sticking out. In normal times these would have been nursed back to health but the intense cold combined with a shortage of fodder left no choice. The heifers were slaughtered. So as not to attract the wolves with the smell, the blood was gathered in buckets to be emptied far away. Meredith took them on the sledge and was gone all day. The carcasses were cut up for meat, some of which was salted and hung to dry, some placed in ice wells for future use.

Two heifers gone, one year’s breeding cycle lost. Joe admired Kathryn’s stoicism for nothing showed on her face; nor did she comment later. It was only when Joe asked what her feelings were that she said,

‘Life sustaining. It’s part of the cycle.’

Her sense of reality was far greater than his; but he was learning. Life at this basic level did not allow for sentimentality or illusion.

One night, as they sat quietly round the fire, the dropping snow blanketing all sounds from outside, Joe brought in a block from the oak Randolph had kept for him. He held it in his hands, weighing it, feeling the texture, uncertain what he should create. He studied the grain and as he cut into it, he let his fingers make decisions. Gradually, over many days, a deer emerged, standing delicately, its head raised, large pointed ears pricked forward, its eyes sad, aware, capturing the innocence of the moment before Joe had slain it. It was his best work yet.

He gave it to Kathryn.

Next day the wind dropped. All was still.

They hurried out to the farm. Meredith showed Joe tracks made by wolves.

‘See how close they’ve come.’

Joe shivered.

The days were spent in a frenzy of repair on farm and house. The three hour rota on the pine was resumed. No one went out alone and no one went unarmed. An attack was expected daily.

Here with a loaf of bread beneath the bough,

A flask of wine, a book of verse - and Thou

Beside me singing in the wilderness-

And wilderness is paradise enow.

The voice and music were unmistakably Joe’s. Kathryn, only half awake in the vacated bed, lay quietly and listened.

‘Ah, my beloved, fill the cup that clears

To-day of past regrets and future fears;

Tomorrow! - Why tomorrow I may be

Myself with yesterday’s seven thousand years.

She ran to the window and, in an unconsciously classical pose, leaned out.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Serenading you. I love you!’

She was enchanted. She was always enchanted these days. Joe was a phenomenon in her life, astonishing and delighting her at every turn. And passionate, with a kind of carelessness as though the largesse of life was so abundant he could scatter it heedlessly. She and the others were parsimonious with food, objects of desire, frivolity, even with love, but Joe had taught her that the world is full of riches, nature careless in her prodigality. She learned that she was allowed the same luxury. Kathryn’s life had become, if not carefree, at least as light as the wind.

‘I’m going to call you Juliet,’ he called up to her.

‘Who she? An old girl friend?’

‘Sort of. A character out of a story. I’ve always been a little in love with her.’

‘Come up and tell me.’

She loved his stories, strange revealing tales that allowed her small glimpses into his world.

‘I ought to climb up, really. You need a balcony.’

‘Haven’t got one. Try the stairs.’

He lay down beside her and she put her head on his shoulder.

‘Juliet is a beautiful young girl, like you.’ He kissed her, ‘and she falls in love with Romeo, a beautiful young man, like me. But.’

‘I knew there’d be a but. There always is!’

‘Wouldn’t be a story otherwise. Don’t interrupt. It would all have been fine if it weren’t for the fact that their families have been deadly enemies for generations. Juliet’s father won’t let her meet Romeo or marry him, which she is determined to do. Fortunately Juliet has a nurse and she protects the lovers. They spend enchanted nights together...’

‘Like us.’

‘Don’t interrupt! They marry in secret and plan to run away but the stern father wants Juliet to marry someone else. He locks her up. Romeo doesn’t help matters by killing someone in a fight. He has to flee the city. So... Juliet takes a special potion.’