White and Other Tales of Ruin (18 page)

He points to the cave. “I’m going to take you in there, and show you some things. They’re things I show everyone I cure, once, but never again. They’re precious, you see, and precious things are coveted. Especially in the shit new world we inhabit. And ironically, that’s why I’m showing you. So that you know how special what we have here is. So you know that knowledge of good things shouldn’t always be shared, because too many bad things can dilute good things. Do you understand?”

I nod. He confuses me, his words twist and turn into obscure, half-seen truths. But I also understand him, fully, and it pleases me to think that there are still the likes of him living on our dying world.

“
I can’t deny the power there is in me,” he says. “You may think I’m some sort of ... magician? Witch doctor? I’m none of those things. In the old days, before the Ruin, I may have been called charismatic. But now, I’m a funnel for a power of a more fundamental kind. The real magic, my friend, is here.” He stamps on the ground, coughing up a haze of dust around his legs. He squats, grabs a handful of the dried soil and looks at it almost reverently. “The power of the greatest magic flows through my fingers with the dust.” The breeze carries trails of dust from his hand and into the cave entrance, like wraiths showing us the way. “The power of Time; the immortality of Gaia.”

I feel frightened, but enlivened. The Sickness sends a warm flush into me, but for once my body combats it, cooling the fever as if the atmosphere of the cave already surrounds me. String possesses me with his words, and I feel no repulsion, no desires to flee. My skin tingles with a delicious anticipation. I wonder what is in the cave, and I am sure that it is beyond anything I can imagine.

“
This is holy ground, Gabe,” String says. “I don’t mean religious-holy. I don’t care for religion, and have none save my own. Similarly, you have your own faith, and that’s how things should be. But this site is powerful. It has a holiness that precedes any form of organised, preached religion. It has the power of Nature. It is the site of a temple, a shrine of rock and dust and water and sky that pays constant, eternal homage to Nature itself. See, up there.” He points to the strips of sky between the cliffs.

I look up and see the birds there, circling, drifting on up-drafts of warm air from the ravine. I sigh and feel any remaining tension leave me, sucked into the sky by the soporific movement of the birds, swallowed by the sight of their gentle movement.

“
The temple is a place of faith, worship of the cosmos. The site of a temple was often ascribed by the flights of birds, their cries, their circling. As if they knew more than man of the powers of creation. And why shouldn’t they? Man has long distanced himself from the truth, even though there are those who profess to seek it. He distances himself even more by worshipping gods who suit him, gods who tell him that he is set above the animals, and they are his to lord over. Man has denied Nature. That’s why he no longer knows true holiness. But the birds, now. See the birds. They know.

“
This is Nature’s temple. Come inside. Let me show you wonders.”

* * *

PART FOUR: FROM BAD FLESH

i

We enter a tunnel. It smells damp and musty, the walls sprouting petrified fungi and lank mosses. True darkness never falls before light intrudes from above. It is cool this deep in the rock, and the air seems to possess something more of the climate I am used to: moisture. I breathe in deeply, relishing the coolness on my lungs, hearing String laugh quietly to himself in front of me.

The floors are uneven and the ceiling low enough in places to make me stoop. String is short, so he can walk through normally. A smell reaches us from further in, a waft of something familiar yet long lost carried on warmer currents of air like dragon’s breath. I cannot quite place the scent, but I do not feel inclined to ask String. He is going to show me, anyway, and I am almost enjoying the adventurous mystery.

Looking up, I can make out where the light is coming from — natural vent-holes that reach high up to the top of the cliff — and in doing so I miss the abrupt change from tunnel to cave. I stop, stunned by the sheer size of what lays before me.

The cave is massive. I can see that it has been hacked from the rock by crude tools, their marks still peppering the wall and ceiling like the timeless signatures of those who did the deed. It could be recent or ten thousand years old, there is no real way of telling. There are no vents in the ceiling here, but the walls are inlaid with a strange glowing material which gives out a muted light. It looks like glass, feels like metal, and it’s warm to the touch as if heated from within. String stands in the centre of the space, smiling and staring around as if wallowing in the grandeur of whatever has been achieved here. And just what is that? What is the smell that tickles my memory once more, encourages me to silence, comforts me, conjures a million facts from a million minds other than mine?

“
Books,” String says. He holds out his arms, indicating the hundreds of boxes stacked around the edges of the cavern. “About two hundred thousand in all. Mainly factual, though some fiction. We want out descendants to know our dreams, don’t you think?”

I cannot talk. It is not simply the sight of so many boxes, but the effort that had obviously gone in to bringing them here. And not only that, but the thought and experience and life that has been poured into making every book here. Billions of hours of struggle, work, strife, pained effort in creating, writing, producing and then dragging these books through a dying world to build a library for the future. It is staggering. It is so huge that I can barely comprehend it.

String has a proud glint in his eyes, the look of a father for his adoring children. “Philosophy, biology, psychology, botany; maps, travels books, cultural works, histories; stories, poems, novels, plays; even some religious works — much against my better judgement, but who am I to chose what people will believe in the future?”

“
You’ve got it all here, in your hands,” I manage to say at last. The enormity of what is here makes me slur. “You can shape the future from this place.” For the first time I am truly frightened of String, this man who Della only vaguely heard of and who now holds my soul, as well as my fate, in the palm of his hand, to do with as he will.

“
Not only this place,” he says. “And it’s not me who will shape it. There will be people in the future — two years, fifty years, who knows — who will feel the time is right. Now ... to tell the truth, it’s still all in decline. I’ve merely brought these things together, protected them from the random destruction that’s sweeping the globe. It’s happened before, you know? The Dark Ages were darker than many people imagine.”

“
So we’re heading for a new Dark Age?”

String sits on one of the boxes, lifts a flap and brings out a book. It is a gardening guide, splashes of forgotten blossoms decorating the cover and catching the strange light from the walls. “Maybe we’re already there. But when it’s over, I hope it won’t take long to get light again. I hope all this will help.”

“
Who are you?” I ask. The question seems to take him by surprise, and I feel a brief moment of satisfaction that I have tackled him at his own game.

“
I’m String. I’m just a lucky man who found something wonderful. I’m doing what I can with it, because ... well, just because.”

“
You found all this?” I say, aghast. “You must have. No man could do all this.”

He shakes his head, a wry smile playing across his lips. “Faith can move mountains,” he says, and for once I see that the saying can be literal. “I dragged all this here. Some I had with me when I arrived, most of it I went out and recovered. Before it was destroyed.”

“
I saw them burning books in the streets in England,” I say quietly, the memory of the voracious flames eating at my heart. I remember thinking that the fire had always been there, waiting for its chance to pounce on our knowledge and reduce it to so much dust, restrained only by whatever quaint notion of civilisation we entertained. In the end, all it took was a little help from us. Wilful self-destruction.

I come to my senses. “So what else is it you want to show me?”

He nods to the far end of the cavern, where another dark tunnel entrance stand inviting us enter. “I found it soon after the crash,” he says. “I crawled in here to die. Then I realised I was in a very special place — had the power of life in my hands, quite literally — and the rest just happened.”

“
Crash?” Disparate shreds of his story seem to be flowing together, images from the last few hours intrude, as if they mean to tell me something before he speaks.

“
I was a Lord,” he says. “I flew a Lord Ship. As far as I know, I’m the last one left alive.” He stands and heads towards the dark mouth. I follow.

ii

“
Some people are not what they seem,” Della said. It was cold, the chill November winds bringing unseasonable blizzards from the North and coating Britain in a sheen of ice. Thousands would die this winter, freezing, starving, giving in. The national grid had failed completely six months previously. It had been a severe inconvenience then, rather than life threatening. Now, though, as frost found its way into homes and burrowed into previously warm bones, it was mourned more than ever. Only the week before, in Nottingham, an old theatre full of people had burned to the ground. They had been huddled around a bonfire on the stage, like a performing troupe acting a play about Neanderthal Man. The heat of their final performance melted the snow in the surrounding streets, and when it re-froze the local kids began using it as a skating rink. Surprising, how well children adapt, as if they’re a blank on which the reality of the moment can imprint itself.

I handed her a dish of curry from the vat she constantly kept on the go above the gas fire. The smell had permeated the whole house, ground its way into furniture and carpets and Della herself. I loved it; I loved her. I never told her.

“
Hmm,” she mumbled, “not enough powder. Next time, more powder.”

I nodded my assent, hardly able to sit still with the acid that seemed to be eating away my tongue and lips. My chest felt warm. I had seen the discoloration there for the first time the week before, but I still had not told Della. It was as if telling her would confirm my worst fears to myself.

I had been told that the army was seen dumping bodies into a dry outdoor swimming pool and burning them. They’d even rigged up some sort of fuel pump, pouring petrol into the pool through the old water pipes. It meant that none of them had to get too near. I did not want to be one of those dead people, burnt in a pool, bodies boned by flames and whisked into clogged drains.

“
Take old Marcus, for instance,” she continued. “You know Marcus?”

“
The old guy who sits in the park pissing himself?”

“
That’s right, the scruffy old tramp who lets kids kick him, lies under a bench because he’ll only fall off if he sleeps on it, eats grass and dandelions and blackberries and dead dogs.” She nodded. “Marcus was a pilot, years before the Ruin. He flew in the Gulf war. Did they teach you about that in school?” I nodded. Della shrugged as if surprised. “What do you think of him now?”

I could only be honest. “He’s an old tramp. I suppose ... I suppose every tramp is someone. Had a life before they took to the streets. Before, anyway.”

Della smiled, wiping her mouth and burping loudly and resonantly. “There you are, you see. I’ve made you think of him as a man, just by telling you something about him. Before, to you, he was a nobody, a tramp, someone without identity. You never even thought he was human.”

I realised how right Della was. I imagined Marcus as a young man with a wife, going on family holidays, proud and arrogant in his pilot’s suit, flying helmet under his arm as he posed for the papers. “He’s still out there, and he’s going to freeze,” I said.

Della scoffed. “Marcus’ll still be alive when you and I are dead and gone. It’s as if he’d adapted for the Ruin before it happened. He’s always been ready. His life has always been a ruin.” She looked at me across the candle-lit room, scratching slowly beneath her chin. A breeze whistled in under the corrugated roof, flickering the candles and making Della shimmer with feigned movement. “What do you think of him now?”

I sighed. “I suppose ... well, he’s a tramp, but I can appreciate him. He’s human.”

Della nodded. “Some people aren’t what they seem. Some are much more than you think, or at least better than they like to portray themselves. Some ... a few ... are much worse. Much of the time you’ll never know which, but it’s you that counts, what
you
think of them. Some people can really pull the wool over your eyes, kiddo.”

I went to get Della a beer, grabbed one for myself, sat and stared at her for an hour or two. Neither of us talked. Silently, in my own way, I was worshipping her. I wondered who the real Della was, but deep inside I had always known. She was my salvation.

iii

“
String,” I say, “where are we going? Is it dangerous?” It feels dangerous, the cool air chilling me instead of comforting me this time, the darkness haunting, not hiding. It’s as if the dark here is a presence, not just an absence of light.

He turns and leans gently towards me, lowering his head and looking at me through wide eyes. They glimmer, reflecting the memory of the strange light in the cavern behind us. “Not dangerous,” he says. “Wonderful!” He walks on, then stops and looks at me again, head to one side, one corner of his mouth raised in a sardonic smile. “But dangerous if you’re on your own. Dangerous, without me.” He moves on.