Elysium. Part Two (19 page)

‘Lost my fair share of teeth over this one,’ he said, grinning a smile like smashed crockery.

Toubec stepped away gladly and pulled the door closed behind her. Tranter threw himself into the passenger seat and turned to Beano, who lay his arm on the passenger headrest, turned to the rear window and began reversing down the narrow alley.

‘Thank you for doing this. I’m sorry for calling but there was no other way we’d be able to get to the border.’

‘Dont count your chickens just yet, Laur. There’s been six arrests in the last month, people trying to get out of the city without papers. Reckon I know a way out that’s not patrolled but then again I presume the others did too.’

They exited the alley and crawled through deserted backstreets until they were clear of Dead Zone and the city proper. Beano flicked on a radio that received police traffic in the local area. It was quiet for some time, the only transmissions received detailing the apprehension of an anarchist in the city. Beano thumped the dashboard, scattering cigarette butts.

‘He was supposed to be moved three days ago, and now... God! Harry Lancaster, they’ll put him away for good now, you see if they don’t... Though I don’t suppose a MoD man like you cares much for the people’s politics.’

‘I don’t know what you think we do at the MoD, Colm, but we’re established to protect.’

‘Protect!’ Beano snorted, snatching a cigarette from his pocket, lighting it with shaking fingers, and filling the car with wafting smoke. He jabbed his fingers at Tranter, dousing him with ash. ‘How many times have we been here, Laur? Half the others in the tin with us had done nothing more than try to stay alive. Remember Jones? Stole bottled water. Four years for a crate of bottled water! And Goddard?’

‘I know there were cases that don’t sit right morally...’

‘The law has to protect those who find a way to survive without committing crime.’ Toubec interjected. Tranter raised his brow and looked out of the passenger window.

‘She’s going to shut the fuck up soon, right? Beano growled, staring at her in the rear view mirror. ‘Otherwise I’m kicking her out right here. We’ve got a two hour drive ahead of us and I’m not going to listen to another second of that shit.’

Toubec opened her mouth, but thought better of it and sat back quietly.

They descended into a decaying aqueduct, stopping only once under an overpass as a small helicopter flirted across the landscape. They crawled out from under the bridge, Birmingham a haze behind them as they exited the aqueduct on to a barely passable country road, dust spiralling about them as they were buffeted violently.

Two hours, Toubec thought as her head connected with the safety bar of the window. She expected to have a brain haemorrhage in half that time.

Chapter Thirty-One
.

South-easterly wind.

Three knots.

‘Semilion’s taking me out of here,’ Priya said to Rosa as she cradled Edith in her arms.

‘We thought you might not stay,’ Rosa said, ‘it didn’t seem like you liked it here very much.’

‘It’s not that,’ Priya said earnestly. ‘I really do like it here. I mean, don’t get me wrong. The kids nearly kill me… Especially this one here.’ She buried her nose into Edith’s neck and made gnashing sounds, much to Edith’s delight. ‘He just needs my help on something else.’

‘Oh?’ Rosa’s eyebrows disappeared beneath her fringe.

‘I don’t think he’d appreciate me talking about it. It’s something I can help with specifically because of my life before coming here. I’ve been working for him at night and working here during the day and it’s really taking its toll.’

‘I see. Well, I don’t. But if it’s a secret then it’s a secret. Do you think you’ll be coming back?’

‘I hope so,’ she said honestly. She had grown to like her role in the crèche. ‘It shouldn’t take long, this thing I’m doing. And when it’s done I’ll come back.’ She wondered if it were true. She had been hoping that the transmission was some kind of obscure joke, or a riddle set by a bored and brilliant man.

Outside a wet mist hung over the village, and parents and siblings emerged from it like miserable ghosts to collect the children.

Priya was growing increasingly confused by her feelings for the village and her place in it. She had warmed to the people, to the crèche and to the pace of life, though her work with Semilion ignited her sense of self-preservation. She spent long hours decoding the message and found herself wondering whether she should simply run. Run away from any threat that might be, either imagined or real, and make it on her own across the border as she had intended all those long months ago when she and Selina had first arrived.

Yet what of Selina? She had grown even more content. Would she go with her? Priya didn’t think she would. Unless, maybe, she told her of the broadcast.

*

‘Dawn?’Amber hit on the door with her palm. There was no reply. She hadn’t heard from Dawn in days and had grown increasingly worried. Each morning she had knocked on the Corbin’s door and each day she had been ignored. She feared that death had visited little William and the family were grieving in silence.

‘
Elizabeth? Reighn? Please!’ Again she knocked, and heard footsteps sounding quickly inside.

The door opened and Dawn rushed out and almost knocked Amber aside. ‘It’s William…’ She tried to say, but Amber had already pushed passed her and was making her way up the stairs.

Dawn followed quietly behind. She sat on a stool by the window, and watched Amber lean over William’s colourful blankets. His arms lay by his side and his toothless mouth yawed motionless. Elizabeth sat on the bed by her brother, her hands clutched together between her legs. She looked at William sadly.

‘
Oh you poor thing,’ Amber whispered, thinking him dead, but then William twitched and she flinched. ‘He’s still alive, Dawn, we need some warm water.’

‘He…’ Dawn said. Amber waited for more but nothing else came.

‘Elizabeth, love, darling... Fetch your brother some water, there’s a love.’

Reighn entered the room, stroking Elizabeth’s hair as she passed him. He closed the door and stood in the corner of the room. ‘How long do you think he has, Amber? Without proper medicine?’ He said the words softly, hiding his harboured intentions of stealing his son to the border.

‘There’s not much fight left in him,’ she smoothed his soft cheek and looked up to Reighn. ‘It could be hours, it could be days. He’s done well to last this long.’

He moved to the hearth, away from Dawn’s snivelling. He had grown increasingly cold to her defeatism, as if tears could help their boy!

Several embers burned dully, and he stoked them with a bent piece of iron, they suddenly sprang to life and crackled brightly.

‘If he had medicine... Do you think there would be a chance?’

‘There’s always a chance, Reighn. But there’s nothing here for him.’

‘I know...’

Dawn wiped her eyes and looked up at him.

‘What are you thinking? You’ve got that guilty look in your eye.’

Amber picked up William and turned to Reighn, both looked at him curiously.He turned and stoked the fire again, a gesture he knew would confirm Dawn’s suspicions that he was guilty of something. He straightened and was about to brush off her curiosity when Elizabeth returned with a kettle filled with boiled water,distracting them.

William’s fingers clasped Amber’s, and she turned to Dawn.

‘Will you take him? He needs his mother’s warmth.’

Dawn looked frightened, and turned from Reighn to Amber. ‘But he doesn’t want me... I only make him ill.’

‘Don’t say such a thing, darling.’ Amber said, and carried the light bundle of blankets towards her.

Dawn trembled, but Amber placed him in her arms, and stroked her hair, and told her she would be well.

Elizabeth began to sniffle, and Amber comforted her in the darkening room. Reighn stood alone by the fire, stoking it slowly.

‘
There’s a place where babies go when they’re too sick to grow…’ Amber said quietly, and Dawn, as though expecting the words, closed her eyes and turned her head to the window. She lay her forehead against William’s, but could feel no breath.

‘H
eaven.’ Whispered Dawn.

Reighn listened earnestly, thinking of the grave on the outskirts of Mortehoe where the countless young of former generations had been buried. That’s all that waited for William, no peaceful afterlife in the arms of the Creator, just a slow decomposition amongst the scattered bones of strangers. He had spent the day deliberating on how to smuggle his son out of Mortehoe and offer him into the hands of those who might be able to help, but now, looking down into the ashen face of his boy, he didn’t care how he would do it. He only knew that he must, regardless of the means or the aftermath; he would do whatever it would take to keep William alive. Come nightfall he would take him and make for the border, and live the rest of his life knowing he had tried.

Dawn took her face from William’s and regarded him before lowering her head. Amber took him from her and lay him on the bed, covering his face with blankets. It was over.

Elizabeth put her hand to her mouth and asked something of Amber, her voice breaking. Amber hugged her tightly.

‘No...’ Reighn said, looking blankly at the lifeless bundle upon the bed. Frozen, his knuckles turned white as he grasped the mantelpiece. It had taken weeks and yet it had happened outside of time, unexpectedly and unfairly. He had planned to change it. He had had a plan. He was going to save his boy. It was decided.

He felt dizzy, his thoughts burned in him and yet none of them held fast. Time both stopped and flew, and the next thing he knew was he was opening the doors and windows in the house to let his son’s soul escape, just as his father had done when his brother had died in infancy.

*

Priya had been troubled by the dots on the translation of the broadcast for some time. Semilion had presumed they were simply divides in the transmission, though the more she studied them the more obvious it became of their intent.

It was a countdown.

South-easterly wind. Fifteen knots.

South-easterly wind. Fourteen knots.

South-easterly wind. Thirteen knots…

She rifled through the pages of her transcript, trying to find the final mark, when the countdown would strike zero.

She found it and hurriedly marked the page with a brief calculation. She stared at it for a moment before standing and racing to the stairs.

She exited into the dark pub, the room’s ghostly quiet and draped with impenetrable shadows. She felt along the walls until she found the staircase leading to the upper floors before taking them two at a time. She asked herself how she had washed up from near-death and landed in this situation. In her past a nameless teacher had told her that calamity clings to some like a parasite, feeding off its host’s emotions.

‘Semilion!’ She hissed, not wanting to wake the entire household.

She called again, a little louder, and heard floorboards groaning above. He must be on the second floor. She came to a short hallway, pale moonlight illuminating the walls and guided her to another staircase leading to the second floor. She took the first step and it creaked loudly. She heard a door open.

‘Who’s there?’ It was Semilion’s wife, Sarah.

‘Sarah? It’s Priya. I need to speak with Semilion.’

Sarah came to the top of the staircase and began to descend it slowly. She still spoke in a whisper.

‘What do you want? I’ll not wake Semilion. He’s dead tired.’

‘This is important.’

‘As is his rest. Now, what do you want of him? I’ll try my best to help, and if I can’t then we’ll discuss waking him.’

‘Fine. I need a calendar.’

‘That’s not a problem, there’s one in the study upstairs. Follow me. Quietly… Walk on the edges of the stairs so they don’t creak.’

Priya swallowed her irritation and did as she was asked. Semilion wasn’t the only one who needed sleep. She had worked for weeks in the crèche and it was only in the last days she had been granted a reprieve.

She followed the sound of Sarah to the second hallway and then up a third flight of stairs to Semilion’s study.

As she neared the top she heard Sarah strike a match and was suddenly silhouetted by candlelight. She lay the candle-holder on a cabinet before walking across the room and retrieving a small brown diary from a shelf of books. She returned and handed it to Priya before closing the door.

‘What’s this about?’ She asked. She still spoke in a whisper though now it was in a louder, more authoritative tone. ‘It’s half-past four in the morning.’

‘What day was it when Semilion receive the last broadcast?’

‘I believe it was in August. The fifteenth, if I remember correctly. Maybe the sixteenth.’

Priya flipped through the book, Semilion’s small, spidery handwriting filling the pages. On the page labelled the fifteenth of August he had written:
J. Corben requested bolts and cement. 15 metres rope weatherproofed and stored in B. Tyler’s barn. L. Rayner Mackerel supply corrupted. Received Shipping Forecast from J. Camberwell.

She took the transmission she had scrawled her calculation upon and muttered to herself.

‘What are you doing?’ Sarah insisted, though was cut short by Priya’s penetrating glance.

Since coming to Mortehoe the days had become obscure and monthless. She knew it was autumn and would soon be bordering on winter – that was all. What day it was had become confusing and then irrelevant long ago.

She turned a final page containing Semilion’s hand-writing, the following page blank, and assumed that it marked the current day.

‘October Twentieth.’ She stated. ‘Today’s Friday, October Twentieth.’

‘What of it?’ Sarah asked, bridling. She hadn’t been keen on Semilion allowing her to work in the cellar throughout the night, and liked even less that she was now in his study demanding a private audience with him.

‘You have to wake Semilion.’ Priya said, growing pale.

‘I won’t. It’s half four in the…’

‘I couldn’t give a shit what time it is, Sarah. Go and wake Semilion now or I’ll wake him myself, and half of Mortehoe with him.’ She thrust the piece of paper, upon which was pencilled her calculation, in Sarah’s face. ‘This is a countdown, Sarah. It started the day your husband received the last broadcast and has been running ever since without him knowing it. I’ve only just worked it out, and...’ she swallowed and thought of all the time that had been wasted, ‘and it ends in two days.’

‘What? You must be wrong.’

‘Whatever it is, or whoever they are, they’ve been readying themselves all this time and they’ll be here on Sunday.’

Sarah’s stern face dropped like a demolished building, and she stepped back towards the door, staring into Priya’s anxious eyes, before turning and bolting from the room whilst calling for Semilion to wake.