Out of Time (27 page)

Petrified, they wait for the patrol to turn into number twenty-two but to their profound relief it marches on. Their hearts go out in pity to the next victim to be caught.

They wait a long time and eventually join Ian and Issie who have been anxious about them. This is a state of mind they are used to. Anxiety and fear are their constant companions and would overwhelm them if they knew that William is biding his time before he acts.

JUST as Kathryn had long ago foreseen a great passion, so now she had no reason to doubt that she had caught a glimpse of the future. That it spelled part calamity, part good fortune, left her shocked and confused, her thoughts spinning round the violent and apocalyptic events to which she had been an unwilling witness.

One night the vision replayed in full. She again saw Joe being killed, saw him lying bloodied and dead. She screamed and woke to find she was safely in bed, Joe holding her close, his arms tightly round her, comforting her.

‘It’s all right,’ he murmured, ‘it’s only a nightmare.’

She did not contradict him but moved close against the warmth of his body. She thought about death.

‘Tell me about it,’ he urged, ‘it’ll make it go away.’

She dug her face into the nape of his neck until her trembling subsided.

“My love, my love,’ he murmured and caressed her and they made love while the tears streamed down her cheeks and her ecstatic cries broke into sobs.

He asked her again the next morning.

‘One of those awful nightmares,’ she said, ‘can’t remember it all.’

He did not wholly believe her but not wishing to force her reply let the matter rest. He knew that, before discussing them, Kathryn often found it necessary to work problems out for herself. He would wait, as he had so often waited, until she was ready and in this his instinct and his intimate knowledge of her was right. She did indeed feel the necessity to assimilate and to analyse her experience.

The pigs, small, long legged and razor backed, their skins a ruddy brown, were kept outside during the summer months though they posed constant problems. The carefully layered hedges failed to keep them enclosed and palisades alongside were frequently brought down. But sometimes they were let loose in the wood that lay the other side of the stream for they dug for roots and acorns and efficiently cleared the ground. After a time they were herded together and brought in, an exasperating task that occupied at least three people.

This had to be done the morning after Kathryn’s nightmare. Weary and bleary eyed she, Meredith and Joe plunged into the wood to bring the pigs, four sows, two gilts and a young boar, to the farm. Scattered under the trees the pigs showed unwilling to co-operate and two of the gilts, thoroughly enjoying their unlimited freedom, made up their minds to stay in their acorn strewn paradise. Their technique was simple but effective. They ran side by side in one direction, usually through a thicket, the humans coming at them in a pincer movement from opposite ends; but pigs are smart and before they could be cajoled into turning round one went one way, the other in the opposite direction, screaming in triumph. Joe was escorting the main herd across the stream and left Kathryn and Meredith to deal with the two runaways. After their fifth attempt to turn them round, muddy and out of breath, their exasperation turned to laughter. They sat on a tree stump holding their stomachs in an effort to contain their mirth, tears pouring down their faces; but Kathryn suddenly found herself crying and hoped that Meredith had not noticed. But he had.

‘Darling, what’s wrong?’

She needed support but could not turn to the one person who could give it. Dared she unload her anxieties and fears on Meredith? His logical turn of mind would evaluate them objectively and she could trust him for they had known each other for countless years and had shared tribulation and terror. Kathryn knew that his feelings for her went beyond friendship but he demanded nothing. That was Meredith. She feared now she might be trading on his emotions by burdening him with her vision; but her need was great.

‘You remember what happened to me during the eclipse?’

‘Of course.’

‘It’s like this Meredith. I had a terrifying, grotesque vision as the light was fading.’

She told him, down to the last detail, and he listened with the acute attention normal to Meredith. He remained silent for a while.

‘How do you know it was a vision?’ he asked. ‘Sounds more like a nightmare to me.’

She took him by the shoulders.

‘You’ve got to believe me. I had it again last night. I was seeing into the future.’

‘Kathryn, be realistic. What would Joe, never mind me, be doing in Bantage, heading a revolution entirely on our own?’

‘He hasn’t told you?’

‘Told me what?’

‘He wants to go and get the drug. He wants to take it.’

He shook his head, surprised. Joe frequently confided in him. But not this time.

‘In heaven’s name why? He’d never succeed. And hasn’t it brought enough misery on everyone?’

‘He doesn’t see it like that. He sees that as things stand he will age and I won’t. Don’t you see, I can’t contradict him because it’s true.’

Meredith considered and looked at her with pity.

‘Kathryn, he’s from another world. That’s the price you’re paying, you’re bound to pay. Hoping your love will last forever is simply not realistic.’

He paused.

‘Anyway, how can you believe that Joe and I, single handed, will succeed where so many of us have died and failed?’

He proceeded to list their names - Michael, Bronwyn, Roderick.... Kathryn stopped him.

‘I don’t know, I don’t know! All I can tell you is I saw it happening!’

‘And what was your role? If Joe and I were there you must have been.’

‘That was the strange thing,’ she said. ‘I was there and I wasn’t. People ignored me as though I didn’t exist, even while I was killing the guards… it wasn’t until I saw Joe that I seemed to be taking part. I called out to him, you see...’

While not cynical, Meredith used logic as the basis for his existence. Mathematics, calculations and the unchanging, steady rhythm of the universe did not allow for metaphysical speculation. Phenomena were observable and real, they maintained an unchanging pattern and were worlds apart from the much fuzzier philosophy of his peers which fell between the spiritual, the pagan and the pragmatic. Meredith did not believe that Kathryn had seen a vision but that she had projected her fears about Joe’s plan into her dream world. Her passionate conviction to the contrary made it impossible to tell her what he thought and he did not try.

‘Have you told Otto?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t want to know what he knows.’

‘Perhaps nothing.’

‘Perhaps. But once he’s told you your actions are in chains. You’re left without free will, the fates have decreed and that’s that.’

‘He’s never made predictions with that kind of assurance. And doesn’t have them. He works by some strange, uncanny instinct and a wisdom peculiar to him alone. All he does is open up possibilities.’

‘I don’t need to know what they are. I know already.’

He waited.

‘I know for sure that Joe is planning to go and that he won’t tell me because he knows I’ll try and stop him.’

‘And will you?’

‘If I can.’

‘How? You can’t physically restrain him. Can you talk him out of it?’

‘No.’

‘So what’s your plan?’

‘I don’t know - yet.’

‘Well, don’t do anything too desperate. He may change his mind at the last minute.’

‘Not Joe.’

As they moved back towards the farm Kathryn seized his arm.

‘You won’t tell him what I’ve told you?’

‘Of course not.’

‘You promise?’

‘I promise.’

The pigs, bored by their own company, came back in the evening.

*

Susie, Ian and the two new children settle to a fugitive life. They have food and water and John and Issie lose their pallor and now and then even laugh and smile. Issie, growing ever more beautiful, proves to be gratifyingly tractable but as the children’s health improves, so does their capacity to make a noise. Constant suppression is necessary and a moratorium on their going out at night beyond the water tub in the back garden is put in place; but the children are never bored. They play games of make-believe and dress up in the clothes they find in the wardrobe. This is a game neither Susie nor Ian have experienced and they join in enthusiastically. These small children are not, after all, the liability Susie and Ian feared. But they have to be careful that their games are quiet, especially when the neighbours are at home. They cannot afford one slip in their vigilance. They have two guard posts, one in the smaller front bedroom and one at the back. This gives an overview in all directions. If danger approaches they hide in the attic, in which they have built an improvised shelter behind some furniture. It is not satisfactory but is the best they can do. The chances of avoiding detection if a posse of guards comes to look for them are negligible but risk of discovery is so much part of their lives that it does not oppress them.

They have noted that the man from number twenty is constantly working in his garden and watching the back. This is a very worrying development and they discuss the possibility of moving but they have nowhere else to go. Jarvis Road also has a dangerous neighbour and they cannot wander around looking for an empty house. Four children in the streets would guarantee immediate discovery and they have, in any case, to remain at their rendezvous so that other children from the dungeon can find them. They cannot understand why more of the committee have not made their escape in the same way as they did and fear that some have died. It makes them very sad.

What Susie and Ian cannot realise is that the guards in the dungeon, for reasons the committee cannot discover, have become more vigilant. It is now their practice to pierce corpses through the heart before they are carried out. Pretending to be dead is no longer an option. They assume this means that Susie and Ian have been discovered. They lose hope.

The ultimate plan of bringing down Helmuth and his men has not been shelved. Susie and Ian have it constantly in mind and discuss it in detail. The first step, which they do not know how to take, is to make contact with other dissidents. They need Margaret to guide them for she knows some of the secret network and they hopefully wait for her to appear. If she does not, they will have to make other plans. They cannot stay in the house forever.

William, constantly watching, tries listening to their conversations but the walls are too thick. He has not yet reported the children. This surprises him. His long training under the junta should by now have conditioned him to being more vigilant and obeying the junta’s rules. He is alarmed to find that these no longer hold sway and that other powerful forces are making him act in a way entirely foreign to him. His intellect is telling him to report the children, now before it is too late, but he has been unable to do it. Every day that he goes into work he decides that this is the day; but it never is. He cannot resolve his dilemma nor can he ignore the children’s presence indefinitely. If they are discovered the neighbours either side of the house will carry the blame. The children must be taken away.

But now a new idea occurs to him. Perhaps he could get rid of them without anyone knowing. If he can’t bring himself to report them he can at least remove them, though he is not quite sure how. He will decide later.

He goes into the back garden to wait for them to come outside for their rainwater. He has timed it well. Soon after he arrives the back door is quietly opened and first Issie and then Susie slip out. He moves forward.

*

Sleep became an impossible luxury. One night, leaving Joe alone in bed, Kathryn slipped quietly outside, past the house and down the slope to the farm where the quiet movement of animals accompanied her in a comforting murmur. Uncertain of her destination, she was surprised to find her steps leading her unerringly to the communal burial ground.

It was shaded by trees, silver birches, a weeping willow, oak, ash and beech recreating life in an eternal cycle. Long grasses encouraged to grow over the flattened graves whispered in the night breeze. A place of rest and renewal that was frequently used for contemplation, it held no terrors, but the comfort of friends long gone. Kathryn seated herself on a bench whose elaborate carvings proclaimed the master craftsman.

The vision had presented her with an irreconcilable dilemma. She had seen in that brief moment of future time that all the dreams of the community, of those long dead and those alive, would be fulfilled, peace and liberty restored. She had seen too that Meredith and Joe were leaders of the uprising, that they it was who harnessed the suppressed misery and rage of a subjugated people and gave them the freedom which they craved.

But it was Joe who was to pay the price.

Was this then the Faustian bargain she was forced to make, allowing Joe to go to his death in exchange for victory for her people? The warring emotions this produced was making her feel almost demented. She railed against the responsibility laid on her by a malign fate.