The Changes Trilogy (41 page)

“Tell me about the Changes, Sal.”

“I really don't know very much. They happened when I was a little girl. Everyone suddenly started hating machines and engines. No, not everyone. A lot of people went away, over the sea. They just started feeling miserable in England, I think. There are whole towns, quite empty, or that's what they say. And after that anyone who used a machine, or even anyone who just seemed to like machines, they called a witch. And I think everyone started to become more and more old-fashioned, too. Really, that's all I know. I'm terribly hungry; aren't you?”

“Yes, I am. Famished. Go and see if there's any gas in the butane cylinders. I saw some cans in the larder. You could rustle up some grub while I finish this lot off.”

“I'm afraid you'll have to show me how.”

The butane hissed happily, but most of the matches in the larder were duds. Geoffrey worked almost through a whole box before he got a light, and then he panicked and dropped the match. The second box was better, and he got the cooker going. There was fresh water in the tank, quite sweet, which was another sign of how carefully he'd been servicing
Quern
in his forgotten-dream world. He had to show Sally how to put a saucepan on and how to open a can. Then he went back to his engine. It took him about half an hour to fit the hose and clear the carburetor jet, and when he turned the crank it moved quite easily. He must have stopped the engine just in time, before the heat could do any real damage. It started at once when he switched the petrol on and swung it again; it sounded fine now. He turned
Quern
's head south. France seemed the best bet. He thought about all the people who had left England—there must have been thousands, millions of them, unable to live in a world without machines. How'd they get out? How many had died? Where had they gone?

He locked the wheel, after five minutes' pointless guessing, and went in to see what sort of a mess Sally had made of supper. It was beef stew and butter beans, and it was delicious. They ate it out in the cockpit, with the engine churning smoothly and the first stars showing.

“Is France the right place to go, Sal? We could turn around and land somewhere else on the English coast, where they don't know us.”

“We couldn't land in this. They'd kill us at once. France is where all the others went, Uncle Jacob said. When he found out about me drawing pictures he wanted us all to go there, but you wouldn't. You liked being one of the richest men in Weymouth too much.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Anyway, we're going to France now.”

“Okay. I'll go and see what charts we've got. I wonder if we've got enough fuel to go all the way to Morlaix.”

There was a message in the middle of the big Channel chart, written in Uncle Jacob's backward-sloping hand on a folded piece of tissue paper. It said:

Good luck, laddie. I should have taken you and Sal south long ago, before you got hooked on this weather thing. Now I don't think I shall last long. I'm going to try and wean these fools of burghers from their cottage industries by building them a water-driven power loom. Can't be much harm in that, but you never know. This antimachine thing seems a bit erratic in its effects—it's pretty well worn off me now, but it seems just as strong as ever with most of the honest citizens of Weymouth. I can't be the only one. It's not sense. But everyone's too afraid even to drop a hint to his neighbor (me too). We'll just have to see what happens.

One thing I'd like to do is go nosing about up on the Welsh borders, Radnor way. There's talk about that being where the whole thing is coming from.

You'll find a spot of cash in Cap'n Morgan's hidey-hole.

Geoffrey went and looked in the secret drawer under his old bunk. If you felt under the mattress there was a little hook which you pulled, and that undid the catch and you could push the panel in. Uncle Jacob had made it for him to keep his spare Crunchie Bars in, but now all it held was a soft leather purse containing thirty gold sovereigns. In a fit of rage he thought of the men he'd spilled into the roaring sea with his squall, and hoped that some of the people who had stoned Uncle Jacob had been among them. Then he thought about that last trip to Brittany, in the summer holidays when he was ten, and decided to go to Morlaix if they possibly could. He did some sums and realized it would be a close thing: but he needn't make up his mind until they were on their last can of petrol.

“Time you turned in, Sal. One of us ought to be awake all the time, just in case. I'll give you four hours' sleep, and then you can come and be captain while I have a snooze.”

When the time came to wake her he couldn't, she was so deep under. And he was tired all through, so that unconsidered nooks of his body screamed at him for sleep. He cut the engine, turned off the petrol and rolled into his bunk, wondering whether a night's dreaming would bring back his memory of the lost five years.

Chapter 3

THE GENERAL

A noise like the end of the world woke him. The room was bucketing about. His first thought was Earthquake! Then the noise came again as the two cans from last night's supper rattled across the floor, and he remembered he was on
Quern
. She was rocking wildly. He ran out on deck and saw a big oil tanker belting eastward, trailing the ridged wake that was tossing them about. Sally came out too, still almost asleep, staggering and bumping into things. She blinked at the tanker and put her thumb in her mouth. It was just after eight, supposing he'd set the clock right the night before. He started the engine and went to look for some breakfast. Supper out of cans can be fine, but not breakfast. They ate ham and spaghetti.

They saw a few more ships on the way over, and about midmorning the first of the big jets whined above them. Sally put her thumb in her mouth again and said nothing. Geoffrey realized that the previous afternoon they hadn't seen a single proper ship or airplane in all their twenty-mile circle of visibility.

It was about four, and raining, when they chugged up the listless waters of Morlaix estuary and made fast to the quay, with a cupful of petrol left in the tank. An absurd train, a diesel, hooted as it crossed the prodigious viaduct that spans the valley where old Morlaix lies. Sally cried out when she saw it.

“Oh, that's another of my pictures!”

There were proper cars slamming along the roads on either side of the mooring basin. She stared at them, and her thumb crept to her mouth yet again.

“Don't they go fast?” she said. “Why don't they hit each other? They look awfully dangerous. And they smell.”

Yes, they
did
smell. Geoffrey hadn't remembered that. Or perhaps five years in a land without exhaust fumes had sharpened his senses. There was a very French-looking boy fishing wetly in the corner of the basin. Geoffrey dredged in his mind for scraps of language.

“Nous sommes Anglais,” he said, shy with the certainty that he wouldn't be able to manage much more.

“Oh, are you?” said the boy. “So'm I. You mean you've only just come over? I say, you
are
late.” He gave a short laugh, as if at a joke he didn't expect anyone else to see. “I'll take you along to the office, though it's probably shut—practically no one comes over any more. Monsieur Pallieu will be tickled pink to have a bit of work to do.”

The “office” was upstairs in a harsh but handsome building close to the quay. It said
DEPARTEMENT DES IMMIGRES
on the door. There were voices inside.

“You're in luck,” said the boy. “He's probably brought some crony back from lunch to help him swill Pernod.”

He tapped on the door and lounged in without waiting for an answer, as though it were his own house. From behind they saw a ludicrous change come over his demeanor, as he clutched off his dripping beret and jerked his insolent slouch into respectful attention. He spoke politely.

“I've brought two new
immigrés
to see you, Monsieur Pallieu. They're kids.”

“Diable!” said one voice.

“Thank you, Ralph,” said another. “Let them come in.”

The room was extremely hot, and smelled of dust, paper, gasfire, wet umbrellas and people. There were two men in it, a small gray gentleman who didn't look like anyone in particular and introduced himself as M. Pallieu; and a larger man in an untidy tweed jacket who looked distinctly like somebody—he had a square, tanned face, close-cut black hair above it, and a bristling little moustache in the middle of it. M. Pallieu said he was General Turville, Inspecteur du Département. The two were sitting behind a desk which was covered with neat piles of paper, all containing rows of figures.

The General muttered in French to M. Pallieu, and went over to stare out of the window at the rain. M. Pallieu fetched two chairs for the children.

“Please sit down,” he said. “The General has kindly consented to wait while I take your particulars. We were, in fact, discussing the possibility of closing this office down, so you have arrived in the nick. Now”—he reached for a form—“names, please.”

“Geoffrey and Sally Tinker.”

“Your ages?”

Geoffrey looked at Sally.

“I'm eleven and he's sixteen,” she said.

“Do you not know your own age, young man?” said M. Pallieu.

“They hit me on the head yesterday,” said Geoffrey, “and something seems to have gone wrong with my memory.”

“Ah.” M. Pallieu didn't seem at all surprised, but went on asking questions in his beautiful English and filling in the form. He had nearly finished when he said “Do you possess any money?”

“I've got thirty gold sovereigns, and I suppose we could sell the boat if we had to.”

“You came in your own boat? It is not stolen?”

“No. It belonged to my Uncle Jacob, but he's dead, and Sally is sure he left it to me.”

“Ce bâteau-là?” the General barked from the window, so odd and abrupt a sound that at first Geoffrey thought he was only clearing his throat.

“Yes, that's her. She's called
Quern
.”

The General jerked his head at M. Pallieu, who went across the room and looked out of the window. He sounded a little less kindly when he turned back and spoke again.

“Let us have this clear. You claim to have come from Wey-mouth in that white motorboat we can all see down there?”

“Yes,” said Geoffrey. “Why?”

“He doesn't think we could have done it in a
motor
boat,” said Sally.

“Exactly,” said M. Pallieu. “Furthermore, it is well known that the government of France is extremely interested to meet
immigrés
upon whom the English scene does not appear to produce its customary symptoms, and there have been a number of impostors who have made this claim. They expected to be given money.”

“Did they come in motorboats?” asked Geoffrey.

“Of course. That appeared to substantiate their claim.”

“Oh dear,” said Sally.

“On the other hand,” said M. Pallieu, “they were not children. Nor did many of them have as much as thirty gold sovereigns. With the General's permission, we had better hear your story and then we can perhaps judge.”

“They were trying to drown us for being witches,” said Sally, “but Jeff made a fog and swam me round to the harbor and found some of the stuff you put in the engine to make it go and I pushed a man overboard and we got out of the harbor and then the engine stopped and the fog went away and the men came after us in boats and Jeff made a wind and abolished them and mended the engine and I helped him and then I made supper on a sort of oven that went whish with blue fire which came out of a bottle and here we are.”

“Let us take it more slowly,” said M. Pallieu.

He asked questions for what seemed hours. Sally had to do most of the answering. The General leaned over the desk and barked occasionally. They kept coming back to the starting of the engine in the harbor and the mending of it out at sea. At one point the General himself tramped down to
Quern
and nosed around. He came back with some odd things, including a mildewy burgee and a packet of very moldy biscuits. At last they had a low-voiced talk in French. Then M. Pallieu turned to the children.

“Well,” he said, “we think that either you are telling the truth or that some adult has arranged an extraordinarily thorough piece of deception and used you as a bait. Even so, how would he obtain five-year-old English gingersnaps? So, really, we do not think you are impostors, but we wish there was some way of proving your story. There are many things about it that are most important—this business about making weather, for instance. That would explain much.”

“Would it help if Jeff stopped the rain?” said Sally.

The two men looked at him, and he realized he would have to try. He reached up under his jersey, under his left arm, and pulled out the rolled robe. He unrolled it and hung it over the back of a chair while he took his jersey off. Then he put the robe on. Odd how familiar the silly garment felt, as a knight's armor must, or a surgeon's mask, something they'd worn as a piece of professional equipment every time they did their job. He opened the casement and leaned his hand on the sill, staring at the sky. He did not feel sure he could do it; the power in him seemed weak, like a radio signal coming from very far away. He felt for the clouds with his mind.

From above they were silver, and the sun trampled on them, ramming his gold heels uselessly into their clotting softness. But there were frail places in the fabric. Push now, sun, here, at this weakness, ram through with a gold column, warming the under air, hammering it hard, as a smith hammers silver. Turn now, air, in a slow spiral, widening, a spring of summer, warmth drawing in more air as the thermal rises to push the clouds apart, letting in more sun to warm the under air. Now the fields steam, and in the clouds there is a turning lake of blue, a turning sea, spinning the rain away. More sun
…