The Changes Trilogy (52 page)

“He's going to come a cropper one of these days,” said Geoffrey.

“What's that he's carrying?” asked Sally.

She wasn't tall enough to see over the parapet, so she'd wriggled herself up onto the warm gold stone and was lying on it facedown, craning over the dizzy edge. Geoffrey grabbed angrily at her belt.

“Don't be a nit, Sal. There's nothing to hold on to.”

“There's no reason to fall off either. What
has
he got?” It was a large black tray, with several dishes on it, and jugs, and a jar. Two cloths hung over Mr. Furbelow's arm, and there was something about his bearing that didn't seem to belong to this world of battlements and saffron-soaked chicken and wolfhounds scratching and snarling around a central fire. A faint haze of steam rose above the largest jug. Suddenly Geoffrey saw a picture, sucked out of forgotten times but very clear—lunch in a big hotel with Uncle Jacob, with tea trolleys whisked silently across thick carpets and huge bowls of fruit in baskets; men walked like that, carrying trays like that, with cloths over their arms like that.

“He looks like a waiter,” he said.

“Do you think he's going to wait on the Necro man? He must see him sometimes, if he knows that he's bored, and he keeps trying to talk to him in Latin.”

They watched Mr. Furbelow move across the cobbles to what Geoffrey had decided was a second well, with a heavy, roped windlass above it. Here the old man put the tray down and started to crank the handle. He turned it for ages, so that it seemed as if the well must be enormously deeper than that from which they'd watered Maddox.

“Oh, look, Jeff. The stone's moved. I can just see the edge of it from here. It's enormous.”

Geoffrey moved along the parapet and saw what she meant. The side of a thick flagstone, a huge one, had been heaved out of the ground and a pitch-black opening showed beneath. The handle-winding hadn't been because the well was deep, but because the windlass had to be highly geared to allow Mr. Furbelow to shift a stone that weight. At last he stopped cranking, picked up the tray and felt his way into the hole. From the jerky way his body moved as he disappeared they could see he was going down steps.

“Quick, Sal, now's our chance to find something out.”

They belted down the long spiral of steps, through the trap in the roof, down the ladders and into the hall where the hounds lounged. The big doors were barred from the outside; Geoffrey shoved and tugged, but they moved as little as a rooted yew.

The children climbed back to the parapet and waited in the generous sun. They were feeling hungry again before Mr. Furbelow came out.

While he was cranking the flagstone back into place Geoffrey said, “I've had a thought—we don't want him to think we've been spying on him. Let's try and find a window downstairs from which we can see him going back to his house but can't see the windlass. If I leave my handkerchief on the balcony we'll be able to keep our bearings when we get down.”

It wasn't easy, even so, and they got it wrong first time. Then they found a suite of rooms with the tiny square windows tunneled through the masonry, from one of which they could see the white cottage. The ratchet of the windlass was still clacking monotonously.

“We can shout, I suppose,” said Geoffrey, “but he'll never see us in here. We might try poking a cloth out on a stick.”

“I could wriggle along and poke my head out. Lift me up.”

“Don't get stuck. It isn't worth it.”

She squirmed into the opening, working herself along with toes and elbows. When she stopped, Geoffrey could only just reach her feet. The folds of the tabard completely filled the square, blotting out the sunlight and the noise of the ratchet. He was mad to let her go in without taking it off—it would ruck up as she came back and make it twice as hard for her to get out if she stuck.

“Mr. Furbeloo-ow! Mr. Furbeloo-ow! Please can you come and let us out?”

Faintly Geoffrey heard an answering shout, and Sally began to wriggle back. He reached into the hole and pulled at the hem of the tabard so that it couldn't bundle itself up and cork her in. She slid to the floor grinning.

“He nearly dropped the tray. He's gone into the house but he says he'll be coming in a minute. Have I messed myself up?”

“Not too bad. Your cheek's dirty. I'll go and get some water.”

“Use lick. I don't mind.”

They went down and waited by the big doors. At last there was a squeaking and rattling outside and when Geoffrey shoved the door groaned slowly open. Mr. Furbelow looked tired, but was gushingly apologetic.

“My dear young things, I am so sorry. I am in the habit of shutting the dogs in, you see, and to tell the truth I had completely forgotten your presence here. On the days when I have to visit him I find it hard to think of anything else. I do apologize. And goodness, it must be nearly lunchtime. I hope he left some food for your breakfast. Shall we eat at once?”

“Please, Mr. Furbelow,” said Sally, “may I go and see if Maddox is all right? And could I let him out into the courtyard for a bit?”

“Of course, my dear, of course. How well that attire suits you, like a little Maid Marian. You two go and look after your pony, and then come and join me for a bite of food.”

Maddox was in a bitter temper, snarling at Geoffrey and trying to work him into a corner where he could be properly bitten. Sally pretended not to notice, scratched him between the ears, found another cube of horse bait and led him out into the courtyard, where he yawned at the magic tower, sneered at the delicious sunlight and began to scratch his sagging belly with a hind hoof. Then he noticed some green grass growing between cobbles and cheered up. They left him systematically weeding the whole paved area and walked into the cavern of the tower.

Mr. Furbelow was talking baby talk with a funny Welsh lilt to one of the wolfhounds; the uncouth monster lay on its back, legs waggling in an ecstasy of adoration, while he rubbed its chest with his foot.

“Aren't you afraid of them?” said Geoffrey. “They frightened me stiff this morning when I came down to get some food.”

“Oh dear me, no, I'm not afraid. I love dogs, though I really wanted corgis but I couldn't make him understand. But in any case he wouldn't let me be hurt—he said so. If you tried to hit me on the head or your pony tried to kick me he'd prevent it.”

“Would he stop you hurting yourself—by accident?”

“I don't know. I hadn't thought of that. But I don't think it's likely to happen. Shall we have a go at this side of beef? They seemed to prefer it rather high, I'm afraid, but sometimes you can eat it. Oh dear. I think we won't risk it. You take that end, Geoffrey, and I'll take this, and we'll drag it to the fire for the dogs. Don't try to do it all yourself, it's much too heavy. Oh dear, what it is to be young and strong. I must ask you to give me a hand with one or two things this afternoon, too trivial to bother him about. Now, let's see.”

He walked down the long table sniffing suspiciously at the mighty slabs of meat, muttering and clucking and shaking his head, and eventually settled for a peacock with all its tailfeathers in place. The dark meat was chewy but pleasant, but the stuffing was disgusting. Most of the strawberries had gone moldy overnight, but there were some delicious apricots. Mr. Furbelow insisted that they must peel these, as they had probably been ripened on dungheaps.

“Did he make all this food out of nothing?” asked Geoffrey. “Or does it come from somewhere? I boiled some water in a helmet this morning and when I'd finished there was another helmet on the wall. Did he really make this tower all at once, just like that?”

“Oh dear, I don't know how he does it. The tower came in a night, and he took my cottage away but I made him get it back because it had my medicines in it. I think this is all a copy of something; bits of it look so used and all those clothes seem to belong to real people. I think it's the same with the food. Sometimes these big pastry things look as if they'd been made for a special occasion. I often think they're not even copies—they're the real things and he's just moved them about in time.”

“Then why aren't there any people?” said Sally.

“Oh dear, it is difficult, isn't it? I've asked him that, before I lost him completely, and he said something about ‘natura.' I think he meant it was wrong somehow to do to people what he's done to the tower and the food—it's against nature. I suppose that's why he doesn't stop the food going bad, too, but he is so difficult now, and he gets so impatient when I have to look things up in the dictionary, and it's all so different from everything I meant.”

“Would you like me to come and help?” said Sally. “I could do the Latin if you'd tell me what to say.”

The old chemist, who'd been practically sniveling with misery at the end of his last speech, opened his mouth to say no, but instead he made a funny sucking noise, and sat for several seconds with his mouth wide open, staring at her. He looked as if he were going to cry, but instead he shook his head and sighed.

“Too late, too late. If you'd come four years ago, perhaps. But you cannot get through to him now, and even if you could …”

The old despairing voice dwindled into mumblings.

“If you could?” said Geoffrey at last.

“I don't
know
,” said Mr. Furbelow irritably. “How
can
I know? There's nothing to go on. I've interrupted a process I don't understand—
nobody
could understand it—especially as I was waking him in gradual stages and he wouldn't let me continue once he was partially awake—he's wavering between two worlds, you might say, and now if I try to interfere again it will only make him worse, and then I don't know what he mightn't do, I really don't.”

“Does he understand what's happened, do you think?” said Geoffrey. (Really it was a very awkward conversation, trying to lead the old man on into telling them more, but not to seem too inquisitive. Like a guessing game, not knowing who “he” was or what he did.)

“Sometimes, I suppose,” said Mr. Furbelow. He'd lost his irritation and his voice had returned to its normal dazed lilt. “But a lot of the time it's not as if he were in this world at all. When he has a lucid interval, though … No, I doubt even then. It must be very difficult for him down there.”

“Then,” said Sally, “he probably doesn't know what he's done to the rest of us—how many people he's made leave their homes and run away.”

“How many people have been killed,” said Geoffrey.

“Is he good or bad?” said Sally.

“Oh, he's
good
,” said Mr. Furbelow, leaning forward across the table with such earnestness that his beard trailed through the greasy juices on his plate. “There's no doubt about that, none at all. You can feel it even when he's at his most completely lost.”

“Then couldn't I try to explain to him?” said Sally. “About what's happened, I mean, and how much harm he's doing?”

Mr. Furbelow sniffed several times and stared into his goblet.

“Oh dear,” he said, “I suppose we ought to try. I do confess I don't want to. I find him a very frightening creature. But it may be the only chance, the last chance. Ah, well …”

He drank the last mouthfuls of wine and stood quickly up.

“We must go now,” he said. “There is some chance of catching him at a good moment, when this world is real to him, when he's not quite lost in dreams. He didn't say anything to me this morning, but he ate what I gave him—perhaps the contact with a real person and the taste of real food on his tongue may make him more conscious of what is really happening. Come, let us get it over with. Geoffrey, you can turn that filthy crank for me, but I will go down alone with Sally. You must promise not to follow us and come nosing down. I know how inquisitive young folks are. I put you on your honor.”

“I promise,” said Geoffrey. They followed Mr. Furbelow out of the hall.

The windlass was harder work than he'd supposed. There was a lot of friction in the wooden cogs and axles, and he wound on and on, surprised at the willpower that enabled Mr. Furbelow to drive his doddering body to work the contraption. At last the stone, a great tilted flap of paving, jarred against a crossbeam, and Geoffrey could see coarse steps leading into darkness.

“They're rather steep,” said Mr. Furbelow. “I'll show you the way.”

Sally followed him down.

At first Geoffrey mooned about the area around the windlass, but soon Maddox clumped up, snarling, and drove him off. The pony seemed to know where Sally was, and even tried putting a foot on the top step, but thought better of it and stood staring down into the burrow like a cat nosing at a mousehole or a lover gazing at the window of his beloved. Geoffrey left him to it.

The second time he passed the white cottage he decided to explore. He could see Maddox from the steps, still standing like a stuffed animal in a museum. Any movement from the pony would be a warning that someone was coming out. The yellow door was ajar. The hall was a clutter of dumped objects, with just room to walk between them. There was that funny smell of damp and dirt that you sometimes find in houses where nobody does any proper cleaning. Upstairs were two rooms, one a dusty storeroom and the other a pretty, pink room with two beds in it. Downstairs was a kitchen with a gas range, but it didn't look as if it had been used for ages; a back door led out to the angle between the outer wall of the tower and the house. Opposite the kitchen, across the hall, was the room Geoffrey wanted.

This was where Mr. Furbelow lived and kept his belongings. There were rows of chemist's bottles on shelves, and more chemistry-looking things in cardboard cartons piled along a wall. Most of the books on the shelves were about chemistry and medicine, and there were piles of
Pharmaceutical Journals
. The only furniture in the room was a very ragged sofa with some rugs on it, which looked as though this was where Mr. Furbelow usually slept, and a big desk with an upright chair. There was a photograph on the desk, of a smiling plump dark-haired woman with her hair in a big bun. Beside her lay two dictionaries, one Latin-English and the other English-Latin. In the middle of the desk was an account book. The latest entry, made only yesterday, read: