Cloud Walker, All Fools' Day, Far Sunset (26 page)

It was the first and only article required by the International Guild of Aeronauts. Any who wished to fly for other purposes than peaceful commerce were denied the lore of flight, the facilities of the airborne.

Recently, the Guild had requested Kieron to visit Geneva to receive the Eagle’s Wings. Being old, he replied that he no longer felt equal to the journey, but he thanked them for their kindness, none the less.

If the Cloud Walker was unable to visit Geneva, the International Guild of Aeronauts was not unable to visit Arundel. They came, two thousand of them, in ten helium airships. They came, bearing gifts, speaking many languages.

There were Indians, Africans, Frenchmen, Germans, Russians, Americans, Chinese and many nationalities of which Kieron had not even heard. The numbers swelled as men journeyed from all parts of Britain.

In the end, four thousand men stood with bared heads in pouring rain, while the Cloud Walker sat in his wheeled chair under canvas and listened to speeches in many languages.

He understood from the British and American speeches what all these young men were saying. He was overwhelmed by their honour. The Cloud Walker had become more than a man: he had become a symbol.

When he had his first weakness of the heart, the doctors whisked him away from the conference and prescribed complete rest.

So now here he was in the rose garden, luxuriating in the scent of Madame
Petrina, gazing with the fondness of memory at the small white roses called
Alyx
.

Kieron Joinerson, no longer known by that name, but known simply as Seigneur Kieron or the Cloud Walker, was content.

The Rome dirigible had passed over the rose garden. Somewhere above the Pacific Ocean, heading for Japan, Jason, son of Kieron and Petrina, was attending to his duties.

A doctor came from the castle to take one of his periodic checks on his illustrious patient. As he approached the wheeled chair, he heard a great sigh. Then he saw the body slacken.

The Cloud Walker was seventy-eight years old. In his last moments he had remembered many things. The sound of bees in childhood, the thin voice of a master painter,
Mistress Fitzalan’s Leap
, the touch of Petrina, the first cry of a first child.

And he remembered Aylwin also, and the shark of the sky, and Capitaine Girod, and Kentigern, and Bruno, with his obsession of streamed lines. And he remembered the floating dandelion seeds, the whirling leaves of autumn, and all the butterflies of childhood.

Whatever, as the doctor confirmed, he died peacefully. The Cloud Walker had believed only that life was for the living. But who shall say that his spirit has not reached out to the stars?

7 July 1971. Two-thirty a.m. The air warm, clear patches of sky loaded with stars, and the Thames rippling quietly through the subdued noises of London like a jet and silver snake.

Two-thirty a.m. A car whispering sweetly, as cars do in the moist hours of darkness. A car, a man and a woman, routed for Chelsea from Kingston. A man and a woman journeying from the good life to the good life. A man with a bellyful of misery and loneliness and some precious dregs of self-respect – driving in top gear to a centrally-heated, sound-proofed limbo with an original Picasso and the latest Scandinavian furniture …

Matthew Greville, aged twenty-seven, ex-human being and adman of this city had been drunk and was now sober. As he drove, he glanced occasionally at his wife, Pauline, wondering if such sobriety could be contagious. Evidently not.

Where did sobriety begin and intoxication end? Perhaps it began about eight miles back with a cat. The cat was black, fat, old and – as Pauline had remarked with comfortable assurance – obviously filled with the death-wish. It had come streaking across the road like a wild thing in pursuit of sex, rats or possibly nothing more substantial than visions.

There had been a moment of choice when Greville could have put on the brakes and sent up a hurried prayer to the Cats’ God. He had had the time and he wanted to stamp on the brake pedal. The odd thing was that his foot wouldn’t move.

The cat passed under the car. There was a bump. Finally, Greville managed to move his foot. The car screeched reproachfully to a stop.

‘What, may I ask, is this in aid of?’ said Pauline gently.

‘I hit a cat.’

‘So?’

‘So I’d better see whether the poor wretch is dead.’

‘There are too many cats,’ remarked Pauline. ‘Does it matter? I’m rather tired.’

‘There are too many cats,’ agreed Greville, ‘but oddly it matters, and I’m tired, too.’

‘Darling, don’t be lugubrious. It was such a nice party. I’m not in the mood for suicidal cats.’

Greville was suddenly disgusted – with himself. ‘I won’t be a minute.’ He got out of the car and slammed the door.

He found the cat about thirty yards back. It was not dead. It had rolled into the gutter and its back was horribly twisted, but there was no sign of blood.

‘Die, please die,’ murmured Greville. Ashamed, he knelt down and stroked the cat’s head. It shuddered a little, then nuzzled him, leaving blood upon his hands. It seemed pathetically grateful for his attention.

‘Pussy, please,
please
die,’ he coaxed.

But the cat clung obstinately to life. Then the pain came, bringing with it thin, bubbling screams.

Greville could stand it no longer. He eased his hand under the animal and suddenly lifted it up. There was a final cry of anguish before the edge of his other hand came down with all the strength he could muster. The force of the blow took the cat from his grasp and returned it heavily to the gutter. But its neck was broken, and after one or two twitches there was only stillness.

He stood there shaking for a few moments. Then he went back to the car.

‘I presume you found the beast?’ said Pauline coldly.

‘It was rather badly messed up. I – I had to kill it.’

‘Did you, indeed! Then, for goodness’ sake don’t touch me until you’ve had a bath … You have to make a production of every damn thing, don’t you, darling?’

He said nothing. He settled himself in the driver’s seat and turned on the ignition. After a few minutes he was surprised to notice that he was dawdling along at less than forty miles an hour. But perhaps that was because he was already becoming sober.

Or drowning …

People are traditionally expected to review their lives when drowning. Therefore, concluded Greville, he was drowning. For the memories were coming thick and fast.

Life (was it really life?) began with Pauline. Five years ago when one of her stiletto heels got stuck in a metal grating in the Strand. It was an evening in late autumn. He rescued the shoe and made so bold as to buy her some hot and deliciously aromatic chestnuts. They talked. He took her home to a surprisingly comfortable three-girl flat in Notting Hill Gate.

There were other meetings. Regular meetings. She was in advertising and ambitious. He was in an oil company and frustrated. They both thought he had talent. Greville thought he could write poetry and was even prepared to accept the prostitution of novels. Pauline thought he could write copy. High-class copy for high-class ads. Temptation for Top People.

Before he knew what had happened, he had a job at twice the salary and half the work. The great and glorious mantle of the adman had wrapped itself comfortably round his shoulders. He still thought it was because he had talent. He did not discover until much later – after they were married – that it was because Pauline also had talent.

Hers was more formidable. It consisted of an easy manner with executives and clients, an affinity for bedrooms, a body that seemed somehow to carry a written guarantee, and a mind like a digital computer.

Greville climbed fast. And the funny thing was that for two years he didn’t know who was holding the ladder.

He discovered it in the most conventional of ways – quite by accident when he returned from a Paris conference one night too soon. By that time, Greville and Pauline had a flat in a new block in Holland Park. It was a nice flat, high up, with views over London and two bedrooms.

Greville had arrived at London Airport just after eleven o’clock. He let himself quietly into the flat just before midnight. He had made the stealthy approach in case Pauline was asleep. There were the remains of drinks in the living-room – two glasses – and a blue haze of cigarette smoke.

At first he was glad that Pauline had had company. He thought he must have just missed the visitor. Then Pauline’s voice coming muffled from the bedroom – excited and inarticulate – told him that he had not quite missed the visitor. Logically enough, the second voice belonged to the man who had given him the opportunity of rubbing shoulders with the great at the European Project conference in Paris.

Indecision. Masochism. Cowardice.

Greville listened to the sounds in the bedroom. He sentenced himself to listen, taking a terrible satisfaction in his own humiliation. Then, when all was quiet, he simply went away.

He found himself a hotel at Marble Arch, spent the rest of the night drinking duty-free cognac, and returned to Pauline at the appointed time. He never told her about it, and he never again returned from a trip unexpectedly. But thereafter he kept the score. He let her see that he was keeping the score just so that she would not get too careless. She never did.

Accounts came Greville’s way, all kinds of accounts from steel to lingerie. So did private commissions. And consultancies.

No longer an ordinary account executive – let other people do the work – he concerned himself with policy and strategy. And the money kept on rolling.

Holland Park, Portman Square, Victoria, and now eighteen thousand pounds-worth of status residence in Chelsea. A Picasso and Scandinavian furniture. Success. Success. Success …

‘Darling,’ said Pauline bisecting his reverie with her number one conciliatory voice. ‘I was talking to Wally Heffert while you were laying it on for the Evans girl.’

‘That must have been nice for you.’

‘Oh, well, he’s quite a cheery old stick.’

Dull, divorced and loaded, thought Greville. Wally Heffert, king of Hef
fert, McCall and Co. Lord High Custodian of three frozen foods, a dozen cigarette brands, Trans-Orient Air Lines and the Junior Joy contraceptive pill. Therefore by definition a ‘cheery old stick’. Pauline’s natural prey.

‘He thinks a lot of your work,’ she went on. ‘He’d like to talk to you about a retainer. Heffert McCall are getting more than they can handle … It would be quite a big slice, I imagine.’

‘How long have you been sleeping with him?’ asked Greville conversationally, keeping his eyes on the road.

‘Please don’t be immature, darling. That stupid cat must have upset you.’

For Pauline, ‘immature’ was a multi-purpose word. It could equal obscene, petulant, idealistic, depraved, old-fashioned, naïve or honest – depending upon the occasion and the context.

In the present instance, it clearly equalled obscene plus petulant.

Greville turned the car towards Chelsea Bridge. The speedometer needle crept high once more. He did not know it, but he had just made a decision.

He turned to Pauline. ‘Do you know, darling, I think I’m actually sober.’

Suddenly, she sensed that something was wrong – badly wrong.

‘What the hell are you talking about, Matthew?’

Chelsea Bridge was before them. A slightly arched ribbon of road. There was nothing else on the road. There was nothing but the sky and the river.

‘Being alive, that’s all. My God, it hurts!’

Sixty-five, seventy, seventy-five, eighty …

‘Stop the car! Do you hear? Stop the car!’

He turned and smiled at her. There was affection in his voice. Even compassion. Because at last he felt that he could afford to forgive.

‘Dear Pauline,’ he said. ‘It’s no good only one of us being sober. Why don’t we stop the world?’

They both tore at the wheel. The car skipped crazily against the steelwork of the bridge. Then it somersaulted twice and landed on its side.

Greville, still alive, found that he was lying almost on top of Pauline. Her eyes were open, reminding him of the cat. But this time there was no problem … She still looked beautiful; and, for a moment, he was sure he could smell roasting chestnuts …

Then he tried to move. And the tears in his eyes mingled with his own blood.

A few minutes later, another car began to cross Chelsea Bridge. And a little after that an ambulance and a police car came.

Until early July the summer had been a typically English summer – that is to say, despite manned weather satellites and computer-based long-range forecasts, it had remained as unpredictable as ever, confounding scientists, prophets, farmers and tourists alike. One day the sky would be clear and the sun hot; and the next day torrential downpours would reduce the temperature to a level plainly indicating warmer underwear.

But by the middle of July it began to look as if the summer might possibly settle down into one of those vintage seasons that everybody remembers from childhood, though nobody can actually pin down the year. Each day, after early mists, the sky became abnormally clear. The heat was not too intense, and light breezes made life pleasant enough for those who still had to go to work.

July passed, August came – and still the good weather persisted. It was not confined to the British Isles or even to Europe. Most of the countries in the Northern Hemisphere basked in what was truly a golden season. Later, it would be the turn of the Southern Hemisphere to enjoy the fantastic run of weather. But no one was yet to know that, for the next ten years throughout the world, summertime was going to break all known records.

Matthew Greville, however, was among the minority who remained quite uninterested in the weather; and, in fact, he was largely unaffected by it during the next three years. The crash that killed Pauline merely dealt him multiple head injuries. He remained in hospital until September, while the surgeons made a thoroughly efficient job of saving the sight of his left eye and restoring muscular control of the left side of his body. At the same time, the psychiatrists were busy persuading him that life could still be worth living. As it turned out, their task was rather more difficult than that of the surgeons. But eventually they at least got him to a state in which he was fit to plead.