Out of Time (19 page)

JOE swam across the river, holding his bundle of clothes aloft. It hampered his stroke and with the current flowing fast he needed all his strength to reach the far bank. He struggled out, exhausted, disturbing a pair of red crested ducks, the male resplendent in brown, black and white, rising swiftly with a loud kurr out of tall reeds.

The terrain this side of the river was wilder and more overgrown than Joe expected. He hacked his way through shrubs, saplings and thickets, cutting a zigzag path towards the hills which rose to unexpected heights, a forest of green broad-leaved trees. He walked mechanically, barely aware of what he was doing or where he was going; or indeed why. If there was a purpose that had brought him to this wild spot it was lost in the labyrinth of his unconscious; if there was feeling it had died. In its place lay a vacuum. This, he thought, is what it must be like to be a ghost, seeing everything but feeling nothing. His heart had turned to ice.

He reached the foothills on the third night and collapsed, haunted by hosts of strangers flitting in and out of his dreams. In the morning he found he had been sleeping on the edge of a ruined village.

Had he not come on it by chance he would not have found it. It lay hidden beneath a canopy of trees though here and there unshaded patches shimmered in stippled sunlight. In these exotic weeds flourished, festively decorating what had once been houses alive with men, women, children, dogs. Their noise and bustle had long since yielded to the silence of departed souls. But Joe felt their presence still dwelling in the abandoned stones, a village of the dead. He was treading on hallowed ground.

All day he wandered listlessly about the small settlement, picking up broken pieces of painted ceramics, inscribed seals and ornaments, the poignant detritus of former lives littering the ground. Dwellings, built from the same red bricks as The Manor, had been modest but not cramped and the ruins varied in size. Joe remembered from Volume One of the history that homes were interchangeable according to family circumstance. A wide street, now mud-caked but with stone slabs still solid underfoot, ran through the middle. This must have been the main thoroughfare. The foundations of stately buildings remained, centres no doubt for village elders and for meetings.

A stream beside the settlement fed the remains of a water mill. Joe crossed the rickety bridge over a ferocious mill race, into the roofless interior. One large millstone was still miraculously whole, the other lay in large, jagged pieces among the residue of the last milling, scattered on the ancient crumbling floor. Joe let the old, hard grains of corn fall through his fingers. Of the majestic waterwheel nothing remained but hub and spokes, the main shaft long since disintegrated. So much human effort gone to waste. He left it with a sickening sense of the futility of human endeavour.

He followed the stream a little way down to a cistern where water escaped over flattened walls, the wreckage of an impressive drainage system connected to small bath houses and latrines. Drains ran into covered sewers which disappeared into the earth, to feed into the river below.

Two gateways marked the entrance to the village, one either side of the main street but there was no sign of a surrounding defensive wall. This was not like the ruins in his world which indicated a constant threat from marauding enemies. Instead, Joe imagined the travellers who came regularly to exchange goods in the square, large enough to hold people, carts and horses. It was now almost entirely obscured by trees, shutting out sunlight that must have illuminated a lively scene. A well, handsomely faced off with knapped flints taken from the chalky hills opposite, stood in the middle. It contained water but too far down for Joe to reach. He found a cracked earthenware pot and lowered it on a rope of twisted grass. The water tasted sweet and cool. He wondered how long ago the last human had drunk it.

He found a wooden doll with only one arm and half a leg. It looked at him dully, long abandoned and unloved.

He felt woefully alone in this dead place that had once housed people.

On the outskirts were the remains of sheds and farm buildings. Joe settled there for the night.

In the morning, as he walked out into the dawn, mist rising at his feet, the sun sent a splinter of light against a wall. For no reason that later he could explain, Joe knelt beside it and dug away leaves and soil to reveal a flat, heavy object, some six centimetres long, encrusted with dirt. He sat in the warmth of the rising sun, scraping it clean, careful not to damage its hard shiny surface. Gradually a yellow gleam revealed a lustrous polished stone, triangular in shape with a small finely crafted silver ring at its apex, clearly a pendant to be worn round a woman’s neck. He held it in his hand, an object that he could not doubt was fashioned as a love token, radiating the passion of its maker. What beautiful woman had it adorned? He could think only of one, whose tawny hair exactly matched the amber of the stone.

He could see now, painfully and in vivid detail, the desolation on Kathryn’s face as he walked away, the utter loss of hope. His anger evaporated. Overcome with longing he could no longer recall why he had left. Was it because he felt betrayed? Had she betrayed him? She had not denied that the community had secrets that they were concealing and she had promised that when the time was right these would be revealed. She had asked him to wait. He knew now why. She had wanted to protect their love for reasons for which he had supplied ample justification. When told the truth he had fled because the truth was too painful to bear.

Who was he to act as judge on the way the community ran their lives? An inexperienced boy who had failed to grow up, who had made judgements on the assumption that the rules governing his world had validity in another. He had arrogantly taken it for granted that he could and would fashion events to suit his preconceived ideas, he had tried to impose his will where he should have, in all humility, accepted the principles by which the community lived and for which they were prepared to die. Kathryn was not the girl next door, she was not a teenage model. Kathryn was not like anyone he had known or dreamed of, she was herself, shaped by her circumstances and her years. If he could not accept her at her own value, he had no business in her life.

Even more shameful was the realisation that he had succumbed to jealousy, the green god had devoured him. That was the reason he was alone in this desolate spot, with only the memory of the woman he loved. He was shocked at himself. His liberal attitudes, always taken for granted were, after all, skin-deep. His unconscious wish, now bubbling to the surface, was that Kathryn had been a virgin when they first fell in love, that he was the sole possessor of her beautiful being. What was this? Some primitive male droit de seigneur? He was overcome with remorse, devastated that he might have destroyed the most precious thing in his life for reasons he now found untenable and degrading. He realised he must have hurt her profoundly.

He wrapped the amber pendant carefully in dry leaves, put it in his pocket and set off urgently downhill. He did not doubt that he could win Kathryn back and that he would once again hold her close.

*

The committee is still trying to devise ways of escaping but can find none. The children are weak, closely watched and all exits are guarded. The door into the dungeon is barred and locked and is well beyond their strength to break down. There are no windows and their only glimpse of the outside world is at the end of the tunnel, the point at which the laden wheelies are taken over by other prisoners to be emptied elsewhere.

One morning, they find one of the children lying on the floor, dead. This is no unusual occurrence. The body is put into a wheelie and taken away by a guard, up the sloping channel to the tunnel’s mouth. Susie looks at the corpse with pity in her heart. So young a child to die. She will do anything to survive, to go on living, to get out of this hell. It is then that she realises that the means of escape is at hand but they have been too blind to see it. It is often the simplest solutions that are the best, as Susie is finding out.

She puts her plan to the committee. One of them will pretend to be dead. They will be wheeled out, into the precious open. She cannot of course tell what will happen next, but it is a risk worth taking. No risks, no freedom. They immediately agree to put her plan into action. Pretending to be dead will not need much subterfuge because they are hanging onto life only by a thread, helped by the food Margaret’s relative still supplies whenever she can. Though they do not know where dead bodies are dumped they guess that, knowing how casual the guards are, it is possible that there will be time to make a getaway before they are buried. It is a dangerous plan. It could mean the end of them all. They wonder if they should put it to the other children whose lives they are risking but they decide against it. Most of them are too apathetic to care, many will die soon and the more people who know about the plan the less likely is it to succeed.

*

Joe stood on the track, nodding a greeting at Randolph but looking at me, questions and expectation in his eyes, his face taut, white lipped. I did not respond, though inside I was panic-stricken, unable to look at him or speak to him. Escape was the only option. I needed time to battle with the fact that he had come back, though for what I could not be sure. A reconciliation? Or did he want to taunt me? We stood there, the three of us, frozen, not knowing what to say. Randolph urged the oxen forward. He wanted to escape too or perhaps he thought he was doing us a favour by leaving us on our own. I put out a restraining arm to stop him leaving and in a futile attempt to break the silence made a foolish remark like ‘I see you’re back,’ and fled, leaving Joe standing.

I found out later from Belinda that he had returned some five days previously, dishevelled and exhausted, had come straight round to the farm, looking for me but finding only her. She gave him short shrift. He seemed incredulous that Randolph and I had gone away, because of course no one ever leaves home except on the salt gathering expedition and he knew that we had no need of further supplies. The others had conspired to get me away and take my mind off what had happened. They succeeded though not in the way that was intended. No one could have anticipated the horrors we experienced though these at least put my unhappiness in perspective, made me come to terms with Joe leaving. Or so I thought. But no. One sight of him and I am in the same confusion, pain, anger and dismay as before.

It would have been better if he’d kept away. I’m suffocating, feel his eyes on me all day, I sense his shadow wherever I go. There’s no escape even though I turn away if I see him. I don’t want to speak to him, don’t want to hear what he has to say. I’m afraid, terrified his words will pierce my heart.

Yesterday I brought Randolph a message from Otto. I didn’t realise Joe was working with him. I walked past, as though he wasn’t there but I could see him looking at me, a mixture of sorrow and anger on his face.

We can’t go on like this. Everyone is walking on tiptoe. We’re living in a loud, echoing silence.

At night I creep upstairs, back to my and Belinda’s room, blocking out the image of the sloping wooden roof that has seen so much, the sound of familiar creaking floorboards, the sun in the welcoming mornings, the love, the love. If only I could forget or pretend it never happened but my face is the mirror to my heart and while the others avoid looking at me, too painful for them, Otto watches me silently with his inscrutable, don’t-come-too-near-me eyes. I wish he would say something, condolence, recrimination, anything, he’s making it worse, unendurable.

We’re going to crack, all of us, and I’m helpless to stop it. I’m caught in a vice. I can’t get out. I love him still, of course I do, how could one root out so intense a passion but I’m terrified. Belinda says the time has come to solve things one way or another. It’s all very well for her, no, that’s not fair, it isn’t at all, seeing me with a new love while her old one has gone stale. But I can’t tell her what I hardly dare tell myself, it’s this; I can forgive him for walking away, I understand why he did it and blame myself for not being more courageous early on. It’s not that. Something else.

I keep looking at myself, am I old, am I old? I go constantly to the bedroom, strip bare, examine my body in the long mirror minutely inch by inch. I can find neither mark nor blemish on my skin, no telltale creases under my eyes or on my cheeks. My breasts are smooth and high and my thighs silky and soft. But what does Joe see now that he knows? An old woman, ravaged by time?

I would prefer to die.

‘You’re beautiful!’

He was standing in the doorway, looking at her looking at herself. She ran to the bed, pulled off a blanket and covered herself, crying and shouting, pushing him out of the door, beating him with her fists but he held her tight and would not let her go until her sobbing subsided and she lay with her head against him and he covered her with kisses.

Later, as they lay together, exhausted by love, he softly traced her face with his forefinger, then propped himself on his arms to look into her eyes.

‘You must have thought me an intolerant pig,’ he said.

She looked at him innocently.

‘Me? Never!’

And later still.

‘Do you think of me as old, Joe, do you?’

‘I think of you as you are, beautiful, exotic. You’re my exotic bird,’ he said.

*

One morning a new child is pushed into the dungeon, a boy called Rob. He, like Susie, has been brought up in secret and discovered. He is older and bigger than the others and as yet not worn down by privation. They immediately make him a member of the committee and tell him of their escape plans.

Rob has seen that the dead are dumped in a large shed not far from the sewer’s entrance. They are then pitched into a mass grave outside the town and covered with lime. He approves their plan to be wheeled out alongside a corpse. They can all escape that way so long as they do it one by one, at reasonable intervals of time. They won’t be missed. The guards change constantly and do not know the prisoners individually. No one person is in charge. The guards dump the bodies and go away. Someone else buries them.