Binscombe Tales - The Complete Series (48 page)

Whilst Mr Disvan got into deep discussion with Professor Moorcock (about higher political theory as far as I could tell) I sat and awaited developments, watching the dusk turn into a starlit night. Doctor Bani-Sadr, ever practical, went off in search of refreshments for us.

A horrible child came and stationed herself opposite me and stared as if she’d never seen a smartly dressed, handsome young man before. I tried smiling, staring blankly back, and then looking round, above and below her, but nothing could distract her steady gaze. The blood was rising to my face and a churlish loss of cool was in prospect when Doctor Bani-Sadr saved me by his return. He was laden down with bottles of barley wine and breadcrumbed chicken legs, neatly wrapped in serviettes, and yet was master of the situation in a way I was not.

‘Off you go, Tracey,’ he said gently to the child. ‘You’re making Mr Oakley feel comical.’

She accepted a chicken leg and chewed savagely on it, still staring. Then the doctor’s request seemed to sink in and she turned aside.

‘Ha—stockbroker!’ she laughed, pointing at me, before speeding off across the hill.

‘Take no notice, Mr Oakley,’ said Bani-Sadr. ‘It’s just that you’re a bit of an exotic bird in these parts. Here, have another sort of exotic bird.’

He proffered a bit of dead chicken in front of my nose before I could wave it away.

‘Er... no thanks,’ I said gingerly. ‘Have they got any salad?’

Doctor Bani-Sadr looked dubious and was about to say something when a great roar went up from the crowd.

I heard Mr Disvan’s voice saying, ‘...but surely, the paradox at the heart of anarchy is...’ before he too faded off and joined in the general wonderment.

The sky above the field was folding in on itself and then straightening out again, like a sheet of paper held by a wide awake baby. Then the whole horizon shook as if it were a theatre curtain and the cast were impatient to get on. For a mere second, the stars blinked and went out. I found myself gasping with the rest, powerfully interested in whether we too would be swept up in the collapse of the World.

It took a little while for me to notice that, whilst I was panicking, those about me, even the small children, were not. The associated sense of shame allowed me to calm down and I was able to register, with joy, that the stars were back and functioning.

I felt a hand descend on my shoulder and found that Mr Disvan was standing above me.

‘It’s time, Mr Oakley,’ he said.

‘For what?’ I’d failed to keep the high note of alarm out of my voice.

‘For your moment in the limelight, what else? Come along.’

For want of a good reason to resist, I allowed myself to be drawn up and forwards, out of the company of the crowd, out onto the bare hillside.

‘In your own time, Mr Oakley,’ came Disvan’s voice from behind me.

‘In my own time what?’

‘Give the signal to start the traditional singing.’

I could have said ‘What singing? What song?’ but that exchange might have gone on some while, and I sensed that the Binscomite horde were waiting on me. Keen to get shot of all that attention, I surrendered to the flow of events, understanding or not. Pretending I was the starter at the Grand Prix, I raised my arm in the approved fashion, paused a second and then let it drop.

Mr Disvan’s singing voice was surprisingly high and delicate, but the predominant noise was a great bass rumble from the crescent of male Binscomites across the hill. The ladies’ contribution occasionally soared up above the main choral theme, providing a softer, slightly unearthly contrast. There was a touching pause in which the thin and piping voices of the children were given a moment of prominence.

I wouldn’t have said it was beautiful or even, come to think of it, very nice at all. Dire Straits couldn’t have done much with it. However, I was stirred by the sound. What I was hearing, although it might have verses and a chorus, was more of a statement than a song. Alas, the sense of that statement, if not its sentiments, was lost on me.

‘I don’t understand the words,’ I said.

Mr Disvan cheerfully broke off singing.

‘You wouldn’t, Mr Oakley. You don’t know the language.’

‘Eh?’

‘The language—you don’t know it yet, just hum along.’

‘What language is it?’

‘Our own. A sort of dialect of Old West-Saxon with South-Saxon loan words. Don’t concern yourself. When you’re retired and have got the time, I’ll teach it to you.’

‘But what are they singing?’

‘Think of it as our national anthem, Mr Oakley.’

‘What, “Binscombe, Binscombe
uber alles
”?’

Disvan tutted impatiently. ‘Don’t be snide about our culture, Mr Oakley. And now look what you’ve done. You’ve made me miss the end of the song—that’s the best bit.’

The singing had indeed come to an abrupt end. The ululation of the Binscomite womenfolk that greeted its finish filtered eerily out into the night air.

‘Well done, Mr Oakley,’ said Disvan. ‘You can come back now.’

I grasped the suggestion with both hands and in seconds was ‘safely’ back with the mob.

Professor Moorcock was dumfounded.

‘Amazing...’ he kept repeating. ‘Really amazing.’

Doctor Bani-Sadr smiled at me. ‘Well, Mr O, what did you make of it all?’

‘Nightmares probably,’ I replied, thereby getting a laugh out of the doctor.

‘And you, professor?’ he added.

Moorcock looked blankly at us. ‘It’s...’

‘Amazing?’ I prompted.

‘Yeah,’ he agreed predictably, ‘it’s amazing.’

‘Oh-oh,’ said Mr Disvan. ‘Trouble.’

We all looked in the direction he indicated and saw what he meant. In the light provided by a set of car headlamps, a little morality play was being enacted down by the roadside.

Two obvious strangers—young, brash, caricature yuppies—had been attracted by the noise and lights on the side of the Ridge and had stopped their car to investigate. Mr Limbu and Vladimir Bretwalda were trying to discourage their curiosity, but to no avail. I assumed the young men were drunk because they appeared to be actually arguing with these two very dangerous Binscomites.

Then I saw the mountainous Vladimir Bretwalda terminate their enquiring frame of mind by hitting each—one, two—very hard indeed. They suddenly felt the need to rest limply on the ground beside their car. Bridget Maccabi shimmied in from the shadows and, leaning into the car, turned off the lights, thus bringing the show to an end.

‘Has he..?’ I hissed.

‘I shouldn’t worry, Mr Oakley,’ said Mr Disvan placidly. ‘Neither they or their car will be there when we go back home.’

You could, of course, take this either way, or, as I did, choose not to think about it.

‘Really amazing,’ said Professor Moorcock.

‘Oh, shut up!’ I snapped.

Something else also snapped at that point: the sky. Like the gaps between pictures at a slide show, for one brief second there
was
no sky—only a white void that I caught out of the corner of my eye as I was being rude to Moorcock. Then, just as I turned to look, the sky slid back into place. The problem was, it was not the same sky as before. Nor, indeed, the same view.

Previously, the prospect down the slope in front of us was, successively: a field, a road, more fields and then the street lamps of Binscombe. That first field was still there but, beyond it, there was a new landscape of light. Where there had been darkness, now there was a carpet of untold points of light, stretching away to the horizon. All manner of huge shapes, darker than the surrounding night and dotted with these warm, yellow illuminations, were suggestive of buildings. I was looking down on more than a mere city. Where Binscombe had once been there was now a mighty metropolis.

‘Well,’ said Mr Disvan, ‘what do you think?’

I gestured, gaped and thought of an answer (‘amazing’, I regret to say) but nothing came out.

‘Rollover Night,’ said Disvan grandly, waving his hand towards the illuminated swathe. ‘Nature’s rare and unpredictable gift to our little community.’

There was a pause whilst he fetched out, filled and lit his wretched hashish pipe.

‘You see, Mr Oakley,’ he continued, ‘we’re being allowed to stand back from time, far back enough to see glimpses of both past and future. The Wheel of History is rolling over tonight in a review of what has been—and what is to be in the latter days.’

He puffed a credible, greenish, smoke screen round his head before going on.

‘You were privileged to see the distant past, Mr Oakley and, as though that were not gift enough, now—this.’

As he spoke, a giant craft, ablaze with yet more pinpoints of hard light, flew slowly over the city in our direction. It was truly vast, an ocean liner of the sky, not an airship or an airplane but something more than both combined. Manoeuvring gracefully, it hovered broadside on in front of us, sufficiently close for me to fancy that I saw faces in the portholes and observation windows.

Once again, the Binscomite crowd did not share my sense of alarm. They stood and applauded the space ship (for such, I concluded, it must be) and parents held their children aloft so they might see it more clearly.

Mr Disvan waved and some of the ship’s inhabitants responded in kind. That part of my mind which still answered to the helm, registered the fact that persons intent on destruction rarely wave at their victims first. Overtime instructions to my adrenal gland were thus rescinded.

‘They were expecting us,’ explained Mr Disvan. ‘I suppose it’s Rollover Night for them as well. We’re their past just as they’re our future.’

As if to confirm this, the side of the great ship suddenly flared into fresh life. A monstrous neon, digital display screen came into being and characters and symbols began to scroll across it.

I didn’t understand them and complained about this to Mr Disvan. He counselled patience.

‘Give people a chance, Mr Oakley. I don’t suppose there’s many left that can do the translation work.’

Evidently there were still a few, for my attention was then diverted by the neon display starting to churn out recognisable English. The massed Binscomites stood silent and transfixed.

‘WELCOME PAST PEOPLE ....

GREETINGS FROM BINSKOM SUBURB

- SOLENT CITY .... S.S.S.R.

.... PKB 1644 = AD 5023

.... ALL IS WELL .... PEACE

ON EARTH .... GOODWILL TO ALL

MEN AND NON-HUMAN LIFEFORMS

.... ALL IS WELL ..........

WELCOME PAST PEOPLE .......’

All this was wonderful enough, but something else, equally interesting, caught my attention. I had the sense to sneak the resulting question up on Mr Disvan under cover of a more innocuous query.

‘PKB 1644?’ I asked.

‘Hmmm,’ mused Disvan in return, studying the embers in his pipe, ‘it seems to correspond to our 5023 AD. Looks like the Rollover has slowed down a touch since you first saw it. I expected us to be further in the future than that by now.’

‘But what’s PKB?’