TIMEWALK (fifth and final part)
by Richard Banks
I
get to the safe house, which is a shutdown café, and ring the bell. The door
opens and Henderson greets me like a long lost brother. He claps me on the back
and says the others are out back in the kitchen. I go in and look into their
faces. Four of them are exuberant, pleased to see me, two stare back in
disbelief. I put my back to the wall and draw my gun from its holster. There
is, I say, something that some of them should know if they’re wanting to stay
alive. I tell them about the lock on my door and the delayed explosion that
wasn't. Cheshire says I'm lying, that I'm a Government agent, but everyone knows
that's nonsense. If I was an agent there would be another ten behind me. I look
at Renshaw and ask him why. He considers his answer calmly; he speaks in his
usual, measured way.
“I'm sorry, Adam, but it was necessary.
You were a danger to us all. The Government was on to you. It would only have
been a matter of time before they caught up with you. What then? A drugged cigarette? I doubt it. They use
torture, you know. How long would you have held out before telling them
everything you know? There are millions of lives at stake. I couldn't take the
risk.”
I redirect the gun at Cheshire, ask her
the same question. Her betrayal seems worse and I feel my finger tightening on
the trigger.
“Shoot me,” she says. “Do it! Our lives
are unimportant. All that matters is the Cause.”
“Is there anyone else who wants me
dead?” My question is unanswered but everyone, apart from Renshaw and Cheshire,
are visibly shocked at what I have said. Clearly, they were never told, were
never meant to know.
I put my trust in them and return my
gun to its holster. There is silence, then Renshaw speaks. I tell him to shut
up, that nothing he says can be trusted, then I realise it's him who is going
to save me. He's thinking the same as me but I say it first. “Use Timewalk to
send me back to where no one will find me. Do that and we're all safe. Problem
over.”
“Very well,” says Renshaw, “are we all
agreed?” He looks at everyone in turn as they respond with a terse “yes” or a
nod of the head. He proposes that the two of us go directly to Timewalk before the evening patrols begin,
but I want someone there who's on my side so I insist that Henderson goes too.
We set off and reach the Timewalk building without encountering anything more
threatening than a stray cat. Renshaw lets us in and we go directly to the
transmissions room.
“When and where?” He asks.
I tell him Bath, England, early 1800s,
and he starts fiddling with the controls in a way that suggests that standard
transmissions have long ceased to be part of his job description. While he's
sorting himself out I help myself to some clothing from the props room. I put
on something labelled 'Regency, gentleman's formal' and hurry back to the
transmissions room where the usual lights are flickering on the control panel.
I take up my position. Henderson bids me good luck and I'm on my way.
***
It's a bad trip, I'm down on my knees
and there's a pain in my head like someone's taken a drill to it. What's worse,
if things can get worse, is that I am not in Bath, and unless Margate Beach has
got a whole lot bigger, there's no way this is England. I'm close to passing
out but if I do there might be no waking
up. I fall forward onto hot sand and, as it burns my hands and head, the
drilling stops. I find the strength to get back onto my knees and through eyes
dazzled by sunlight, stare out at a vast desert in which the only living thing
is me. My hat is nowhere to be found, so I take off the tailcoat I'm wearing
and hang it over my head. I need water, proper shade and if there's a place
where these things can be found that's where I’ve got to be. I stand up, pick a
direction and start walking. Two hours later I'm still going. I'm desperate to
be seeing something that isn't sand, but when I do it’s the bleached bones of a
human skeleton. This is what happens when you stop, I tell myself, you must
not, but that's easier said than done. It's mind over matter time; my body
wants to shut down but I won't let it, not after everything I've been through.
Ahead of me is a long ridge of sand,
over which a small bird appears and is joined by another. They tumble and turn
in the air before dipping down out of sight. I keep walking, knowing that
whatever is beyond the ridge will either save me or see me dead. The birds
reappear, soar upwards, circle and are lost in the glare of the sun. Out of
sight, they may already be too distant to see but logic tells me they are still
near. They need water just as much as I do and small birds don't fly far … or
do they?
I look down at my feet and make them
climb the slope to the top of the ridge. Every step must make a foothold
capable of supporting the weight of my body. A moment's carelessness will send
me sliding down, but my mind commands my body and my body continues to climb.
We triumph! and I step up onto a narrow plateau. Beyond it, the desert continues
to the horizon but I don't care, I'm not looking that far. Down below, no
further than one hundred metres, a cluster of palm trees tremble in a breeze
that blows only there. I roll down the other side of the ridge and start
walking again. This could be a mirage, a hallucination, me seeing only what I
want to see, but maybe, just maybe, it exists. I stagger up to the nearest
tree, hug it and know it's real. Ten more steps and I'm within the dappled
shade of an oasis. A lion and a lamb are grazing on the grassy bank of a lake,
on where a swan is swimming with her cygnets. The scene is tranquil, unworldly,
but, like me, it exists. I splash down into the clear, cool water and drink
from a stream that flows into it. In moments I am restored, made well again,
the cares and troubles of another life forever gone.
A crocodile glides towards me and on
finding I am doing nothing more interesting than washing the sand from my face
turns away towards a spur of land on which it has made a nest. Could life be
better? I think not, then a question proves me wrong.
“What animal are you?”
I turn in the direction of the voice
and find myself looking at a young woman who has allowed nothing to come
between her and the perfect tan.
“Human,” I reply. “I am, as you are,
human.”
She sits up from the grassy embankment
where she has been lying and dangles a foot in the water, sending an unhurried
ripple through her reflection. “A human?” She laughs and instantly dismisses
the idea as nonsense. “No, you are different. No human has skin like yours.”
I explain that I am wearing clothes and
that without them I am definitely human. To prove the point I wade over to her
and open my shirt so she can see my chest.
She points at my trousers. “And the
begatting? How do you do that?”
I reply that the trousers also come off
but that I will keep them on in case anyone from her tribe should come by.
“Tribe?”
“Yes, other humans, your father,
mother, a mate. Do you have a mate?”
She lies back on the ground, cradling
her head in her hands. The word seems unfamiliar to her and she repeats it
several times while considering its possible meaning. She decides to respond
with a certain knowledge of her existence. “I have Eric. He is my man and I
am Eve, his wife, who was once his rib. And this place is our home, Eden.”
This is all very odd but at the same
time strangely familiar. “Would I be correct in saying that Eric is the first
man and you his woman?”
Eve confirms that my supposition is
indeed correct. She turns over onto her front and says that if I want to make
myself useful I can rub coconut oil onto her back. She points to a coconut in
which a woodpecker is making a small incision.
“Is this what Eric does when he's
around?”
Eve heaves a deep sigh of discontent.
“You mean when he's not naming the animals?”
“Is that what he's doing now?”
“It sure is. It's the old chap's
orders, him upstairs. Go name the animals, he said, and while you're doing that
be fruitful and multiply. But oh no. Eric can't do two things at once so he
decides to name the animals first and leave the fruitful, begatting stuff to
later. So off he goes into the desert to name the meerkats and I've not seen
him since. Meanwhile, all the animals are begatting like mad and we ain't even
got started. He'd better come back soon or the old chap will be putting the
rabbits in charge.”
There is no good way of breaking bad
news, so I tell her about the skeleton in the desert and how it can only be
Eric. “He is dead,” I say. There is an irrefutable logic about this but the
concept of death is one she is totally unable to grasp. In the end, I say that
another of Eric's ribs has also become a woman and he is doing his begatting
with her. This she does understand and having never been told a lie believes
every word. When she has finished sobbing I tell her the good news.
“What's that?” she says.
“I have been sent to take his place.”
“What, by the old chap?”
I think he might be listening so I say
it's fate, our fate, and that it is written in the stars. This is a line I once
tried on a girl I met in a singles’ bar. It didn't work then and it doesn't
work now, owing to the need to explain writing. By the time that is done the
romantic possibilities are thinner than air. I try another line.
“Try and see it this way, the future
belongs to us. It's a new story, the story of Adam and Eve. Don't that have a
sweet ring? We'll be starting a dynasty that will change the world, no wars,
no hunger, a world full of happy,
contented people. We can do it sugar, you and me together.”
Eve says she doesn't have a clue what
I'm talking about but if it has anything to do with begatting I will need to do
something about the trousers.
I finish the rear side oiling and
tickle the flats of her feet; she lets out a high pitched shriek which startles
a sleeping leopard. Eve rolls over onto her back and draws up her knees so that
each foot is placed firmly on the ground. While she's deciding whether she
likes or dislikes being tickled I spread more oil onto her feet and shins. This
is like the best beach holiday ever and providing I can keep her off the
forbidden fruit that's the way it's going to stay.
It's time to explain about trouser
buttons and having done so she demonstrates an aptitude for problem-solving
that will come in very useful when we start making stone implements. But that
comes later. For now, we have other things to do.
***
This
is both the end of the story and the beginning. This time we will get it
right.
Copyright
Richard Banks
