Vail (11 page)

In this memory I took no part. I was the omnipresent onlooker, the fascinated bystander, soaking up the atmosphere, senses all aquiver for sentient data, the memory made flesh.

From the calorific seaside I swung my inner eye to a damp mossy churchyard under the dripping elms and a bird of some kind perched on a twig. Slanting rain emptied steadily from the skies,
drowning the world in grey mist. A leering gargoyled spout gurgled and spewed clear cold rainwater into a stone trough, its incessant insane chuckle making the silence more oppressive. There, not far away, on the flanks of the hillside, stood a horse with head bowed at one end, bedraggled tail at the other. No figures moved in this grey vision; it was a sodden England under a perpetual downpour, drinking its fill, the thrust of growth checked and in abeyance until the watery sun broke through and burned off the excess of moisture in the saturated fields and in the narrow puddles formed by the rutted tracks. Long meandering walls of dark stone gleamed damply in the drab light, reaching away into the obscure distance.

Another page turned, another vision beckoned, this time of smart people with groomed heads smoking du Maurier cigarettes, long delicate fingers dangling negligently over the sides of wicker chairs, grave seamless faces turned towards the camera as they prepared to fly the Clipper across the Atlantic. In the background hovered an anonymous white-coated attendant holding a silver tray, his bland closed expression apeing those of his masters and betters grouped around the glass-topped table. The gentlemen wore evening dress, the ladies gowns of clinging silken stuff which followed every line and crevice of their slender breastless bodies, for dinner above the clouds was a sumptuous solid silver affair. Their careless ease spoke of apartments in Mayfair and Bentley tourers and weekends in the country where they tramped the Downs in stout shoes and herring-bone capes, calling the setters to heel and debating the League of Nations.

In contrast another image shunted into view, one of clamorous activity and swirling smoke beneath the ribbed and strutted vault of a large railway station. Carriage doors stood open, worn leather straps handing down, the carriages identified by their livery and ornate gold initials. Pungent steam drifted over the tracks, crept onto the platforms and sidled through the iron spokes of bogeys lined up in convoy and laden high with severe square parcels and grey sacks and shapeless brown paper packages. The giant arrowed hands of a moon-faced clock jerked the seconds away, a whistle
sounded, doors crashed, a flag waved, and the grinding acceleration began to gather momentum with squealing wheels and explosive gusts of expended energy. Through the smoke the legends of a lost civilization shifted and fragmented, appeared and faded in mocking farewell: Craven ‘A', Borwick's Baking Powder, Nugget Polish, Colman's Starch, Dr Scholl Zino-Pads, Mackeson's Milk Stout, Bear Brand Pure Silk Stockings, Phosferine Tonic, Bovril Puts Beef Into You, Silvo Liquid Silver Polish, Wills's Whiffs.

Memory was fallacious of course. This England never existed, except in back numbers of
National Geographic
. Long, long before Europe became Urop. Yet this racial memory lingered in me, had made the necessary electro-chemical connexions via the appropriate synapses in my soft brain, and the pictures in my head were as vividly and muddily real as Eastman Colour.

This present England was another kettle of fish entirely. Straight, linear, without U-turns. Obdurate and unyielding. Comprising black limos and
melyn cribos
. Helicopter gunships emitting symmetrical white shafts of several million candlepower. Huge screens and grotty stats and YOPs of shaved heads stamped with purple numbers. Starved rat terrorists and subversive cells. Toxic contamination we knew nothing of and wars we'd never heard about. Motorway flyovers ending in mid-air and signs pointing the way in but never the way out. Trouble was, this England existed only too literally. I couldn't escape it… and the new day that was dawning at last, by Govt decree, made it all the worse and too terribly real.

At the next stat, I decided, wherever that was, I would drop Brown, he was getting on my nerves. That performance with the radio! Who did he think he was trying to fool? Him and his friends would no more succeed in blowing up Dungeness B than assassinating the PM. I might come from the north but I wasn't born yesterday.

Amazingly I didn't feel tired any more. The
Temporal
must have done the trick, I congratulated myself. I also felt a surge of unfounded optimism, always the best sort.

This wasn't such a bad planet after all, I hummed to myself.

Something else I also now remembered: the boy or youth at Sandbach warning me about Watford Gap. Lucky we'd missed it during the longest night of my life. It was gone and forgotten, safely in the past behind us. As was the ‘deal' I had done with him, a favour for his friend Fully Olbin in exchange for the
Temporal
. Sucker!

Another such probable universe (the one I happened to be inhabiting) now hove into view in the broad light of day on the concrete horizon, and I grinned with relief at the sight.

The blue and white sign said:
Newport Pagnell Services
.

Not long after the sign flashed by we had to stop. Nothing wrong with the van, you understand, merely a build-up of traffic that stretched for what seemed miles ahead. I leaned out of the cab and called to a passenger in the adjacent car whose head lolled back on the padded headrest and whose rolling yellow eye regarded me balefully. He was in shirtsleeves, a hairy arm protruding out of the open window, and from my superior position I could see the straining girth of an expense-account belly overhanging his belt and straddling his knees.

‘Excuse me, cock,' I said, matching my tone to the outward show of my appearance and vehicle. ‘Why the hold-up?'

‘Checkpoint.'

‘What checkpoint?'

‘Anyone travelling south of Newport Pagnell has to pass through the checkpoint. Verify your papers are in order.'

‘What papers?'

‘Resident Alien permit, National Insurance index, yellow card, Social Security number, National Health number, vehicle licence, road tax, insurance and MOT.'

‘Is that all?'

‘Personal body check, belongings and baggage check, vehicle maintenance check, health clearance and AIDS screening.'

‘Is
that
all?'

‘Rabies, firearms and explosive material, noxious or toxic substances, prohibited drugs, carcinogenic agents (asbestos, aerosols, etc), medical supplies and woodworkers' glue checks.'

‘That doesn't leave, – '

‘Subversive or obscene printed material,
samizdat
, pirated audio and video cassette tapes, sexist literature, left wing or socialist-oriented brochures, pamphlets or tracts, statistical bulletins, private notebooks, personal letters, photographs and greetings cards of a dubious or doubtful nature.'

‘What else can they possibly, – '

‘Political affiliations, trade union membership, associations, societies, clubs, pastimes, hobbies and recreational activities proscribed by Act of Parliament.'

‘Sure you haven't missed anything out?'

‘Blood relations suffering or known to have suffered from diabetes, angina, liver trouble, leukemia, Parkinson's disease, Kaposi's sarcoma, piles, mental illness, insomnia …'

I wound the window up.

We tailgated at a snail's pace for about a mile, and with every metre nearer the checkpoint my trepidation increased logarithmically until I found myself in a sweating blue funk. Brown. He had to be got rid of. His mug and bio would be in their computer memory store. He would be detained and interrogated, and us, the Vail family, by association, with him. I could
glaswellt
, I supposed, and claim the reward, but how to explain we'd harboured a known subversive for nearly two hundred miles? Besides, he'd have his revenge by implicating us in his terrorist fantasies. He'd refer to us as ‘comrades' and eulogise our support and friendship, winking conspiratorially at the investigating officer and implying that Mira was a damn good
sqriw
(true, she was, biting, scratching, moaning fit to wake the dead) and that it was common practice in our ‘circle' to share the women like picnic food.

(Yes, and that was another reason why he deserved to be dumped without mercy, – his putative sexual congress with my
wife. He had one hell of a nerve, after all I'd done for him, the swine.)

I told him to go, and to take his precious bloody bundle with him. I couldn't take the risk any longer. I had my family to consider. He replied that he could hide in the long drawer underneath the bunk, and I told him not to be such a bloody fool: the checkpoint guards would strip us down to the differential and filter the oil in the sump through muslin if need be. He was jeopardising our chances by remaining, didn't he see that? Where was his common decency, his sense of gratitude and brotherly concern? He didn't need me to give him lessons in
that
, he informed me brusquely. He hadn't noticed me overflowing with the milk of human kindness and compassion, not by a long chalk. Well, was he going to leave of his own accord or did I have to forcibly eject him?
Me
forcibly eject
him
? he scoffed. That'll be the day. I told him then and there that my patience was fast running out; moreover, I'd dealt with tougher cookies than him in my time, and if he wanted a physical confrontation he could have it, and welcome, in spades.

At this juncture in our heated exchange we were less than a mile from the checkpoint, inching forward amongst three solid lanes of nose-to-tail traffic. It was another hot day and the engine pulsating beneath me was an apt metaphor for my rage and frustration. Both of us, it seemed, were likely to explode at any moment.

Mira was saying something to Brown, too low for me to catch. Was she remonstrating with him, pleading with him, sympathising with him, imploring him to take her with him? Not the latter, I was certain: she was too attached to Bev.

As we crept past the half-kilometre marker I heard the side door slam and when I looked over my shoulder Brown had gone. Mira's remonstrances, pleadings, cajolings or whatever had ostensibly done the trick. We were rid of him at last! We could approach the checkpoint with confidence, secure in the knowledge that we had nothing to hide, were blameless of any crime against the state and could not be accused of subversive or terrorist affiliations. Involuntarily my shoulders sagged out of sheer relief. I said aloud,
‘Thank God for that,' but either Mira didn't hear or chose not to respond.

The guards were of the shiny black beetle variety, with tinted visors masking their eyes. Dutifully I followed the pointing black stun stick into the wire-mesh-enclosed bay and, obeying the sign, cut the engine. In the bay to our right a silver-grey Mercedes was ghosting through, not stopping, the occupants not even bothering to wind the windows down, and reclining in the back watching TV I recognised the familiar lithe form of Steve Davis, world champion snooker player and variety show guest star, clad in a dark-green polo-neck sweater, light-grey slacks and alligator-skin shoes decorated with little gold chains.

At his request I gave the guard all the papers we had. He thumbed through them and said, ‘Resident Alien permit, yellow card?'

‘No. Sorry. You see, my daughter's ill and we're taking her, – '

He didn't even let me finish, but pointed with his stun stick to a slip road off to the left. ‘Move along.'

‘But isn't it possible, – '

‘Move along, you're blocking traffic.'

‘Could I speak to someone in, – '

He gave me one look through the tinted visor and I started the engine and took the slip road to the left. The slip road curved back on itself and three hundred metres farther on we came to a roundabout signposted

A422 EAST →
←A422 WEST
Ml NORTH ↑

Most of the rejected traffic was taking the M1, but I was damned if I was going to give up so easily, and swung onto the A422 East and drove towards Bedford. Wrecks and abandoned vehicles lay on the grass verges at both sides of the road; other hopefuls, who had made it this far and no farther.

Mira remained silent, no doubt sick at heart that we'd failed to pass through. I hoped she wasn't going to blame it on me. I'd had a bellyful.

Periodically, to our right, glimpsed through trees and in-between buildings, I could see the wire topped with white ceramic insulators. It stayed in view for several miles until we reached a place called Bromham, a small village where the A422 meets the A428. At the crossroads there were signs pointing north to Northampton and Wellingborough and east to St Neots and Godmanchester. The signs to the south were plastered with large ACCESS RESTRICTED TO AUTHORISED VEHICLES notices, red letters on a white ground. Bedford itself was behind the wire inside this zone, and therefore off-limits.

I pulled over into a lay-by and switched off the engine. When I climbed stiffly and wearily into the back the reason for Mira's prolonged silence became apparent: she was casually sprawled out on the bunk opposite Bev, wearing blue lipstick which clashed badly with her bloodshot eyeballs staring up at me. There were no signs of struggle or sexual interference, though her fingers still clutched the flowered coverlet, and in places her nails had pierced through and were dug deep into the latex foam.

Around her throat, like a velvet choker, a thick black fabric belt (such as might have belonged to a heavy black overcoat) was tightly bunched and knotted behind her neck in a writhing thick black tangle in which some of her bleachily-streaked hair was trapped.

The three of us wandered the countryside in the vicinity of St Neots for a while, vainly seeking a way through, under or over the wire south, then towards the evening of the second day Mira began to smell and so I buried her. The logistical problems were becoming more and more acute. Petrol I could get, fairly easily, by the usual method, but food was dangerous. I didn't want to break into anyone's house for fear of getting shot, and the only other alternative was shop-lifting, which was nerve-racking business, I can tell you. I broke out in a sweat of panic fear every time I entered a shop, which was a dead giveaway. Something I learned to
do was keep my mouth shut. In Waitrose I made the mistake of asking a woman where the dairy produce was and she reared back and regarded me flatly over her packed bosom and asked me where I came from. I indicated with my thumb a region somewhere over my right shoulder and said, ‘North.'