Cloud Walker, All Fools' Day, Far Sunset (50 page)

‘It’s going to be our child,’ said Greville positively.

It was very difficult for them to touch each other without giving Greville a certain amount of pain; but after a time they learned the trick. Liz lay on his right side with their legs touching from hip to toe. To Greville it was like a benediction. He wanted to stay awake and savour the situation, but presently he was fast asleep.

When they woke up in the morning they were both stiff – Greville from his bullet wounds and Liz because she had hardly dared to move. They kissed each other in the grey, early light. They kissed each other and mumbled words that were nonsensical and profound, words that could have little meaning for anyone who overheard them, words whose only value was as the sound effects of pleasure …

At length, Greville said: ‘I’ve been thinking.’

‘Why? I’m sure it’s not good for you just now.’

He patted her affectionately. ‘Because of that lump in your belly, I suppose … We’ve got to live somewhere, haven’t we?’

‘Yes.’

‘We’ve got to have as much security as we can get.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Then,’ said Greville, ‘we might as well join the Band of Hope – but only on our terms.’

‘Fine,’ said Liz equably. ‘What are our terms?’

‘Ridiculous,’ said Greville. ‘Absolute dictatorship masquerading as sweetly reasonable co-operation … They’ll never wear it, of course. But at least I’ve got an ace to play … Everybody is short of women. I think I know where I can lay my hands on about thirty.’

‘Where?’ demanded Liz, wide-eyed. ‘Although,’ she added, thoughtfully, ‘I’m not sure that I want to know.’

‘The Convent of the Sacred Heart,’ said Greville. ‘Now you’d better make me presentable so that I can do a bit of hard bargaining with Meg and Joseph.’

Meg and Joseph appeared shortly after breakfast.

Liz was still in bed, naked; but neither of the visitors seemed disturbed or embarrassed.

‘I trust you slept well?’ said Joseph.

Greville glanced at Liz and smiled. ‘Adequately, bearing all things in mind.’

‘Have you thought about our proposition?’ asked Meg.

‘I have. And I’m going to make a little speech. After which, it’s in your hands.’

‘Go ahead,’ invited Joseph. ‘Speeches are as yet unrationed.’

‘Well, mine goes like this. You people are trying to get together a community that works and will survive. As things are at present, you haven’t got a chance. You survived the Brothers of Iniquity by the skin of your teeth. Your next problem is Sir James Oldknow with a fanfare of trumpets. And after him – if you survive again – there will be someone or something else. If it isn’t people it will be dogs or rats or something like that. You’re too exposed. You’re too free and easy. And you’re not growing. In fact, with every challenge that comes along, no matter what happens you can only continue losing … Am I overstating the case?’

‘Possibly,’ said Joseph, ‘but not so that one notices it. Proceed.’

‘Well, then, if you – or in fact anybody – wants to build a community that will last and expand you’ve got to go back to fundamentals. You’ve got to find a piece of land that’s suitable and be prepared to hold it against all comers – human, animal or vegetable. Then you’ve got to get recruits. Then you’ve got to be able to expand as you need to expand … You could try an island, of course – something like the Isle of Man or Guernsey or even the Isle of Wight. But all islands are at the same time too big and too small. They’re too big when you start and too small when you really want to grow bigger. One thing is sure, you can’t sit here in the middle of England indefinitely and hope it will all turn out for the best.’

‘So far,’ said Meg, ‘you’ve done nothing but state the problem. What about the solution?’

Greville’s shoulder was beginning to throb, but he ignored it. ‘The solution is to find a piece of land which you can defend, on which you can expand and from which you can’t retreat. Then you start recruiting. And you don’t recruit by inviting people to join you for tea and cakes. You recruit by taking the offensive against any nearby community that is either decadent – in the sense that it’s going nowhere – or failing. In short, you steal people. You guarantee them food and a certain amount of freedom: in turn they give you a certain
amount of “co-operation” – no more, in both cases, than is strictly necessary. As time goes by, the amount of co-operation that’s required will become less – we hope. As time goes by the amount of freedom that can be allowed will be more – we hope. But expanding will have to be the order of the day. That way you can grow. Any other way, and you’ve had it.’

‘That’s all very well,’ said Joseph, wrinkling his nose, ‘if one wants to found a new society.’

‘What else is there to found?’ demanded Greville calmly. ‘We’ve already got enough bloody chaos to last us for a thousand years. Liz has a child inside her. I’d like to think it’s got some sort of bearable future. I’d like to think it’s not going to have to spend the best part of its life just avoiding being killed by rats, cats, dogs or humans. I’d like to think it will get a chance to live.’

Meg was getting exasperated. ‘Fine talk,’ she said icily. ‘You’re still up in the air. Come down to earth and tell us what it’s all about. Tell us what you’d like to do.’

‘I’d like you to give me absolute power for a year. Failing that I’d like you to leave me alone until I get well. Then Liz and I will push off after saying thank you very much.’

‘ “Absolute power”,’ quoted Joseph, ‘ “corrupts absolutely”.’

‘I’m corrupt already.’

‘To hell with that,’ snapped Meg. ‘What would you do?’

Greville smiled. ‘First of all, I’d get my strength back. Then I’d make arrangements to collect enough women to give us a decent chance of biological survival. Then I’d start a mass migration. I’d wait till the decent weather comes, then I’d take the whole community down to the tip of Cornwall. There might be somebody there already, of course. But in that case we’d either lick ’em or make ’em join us. If, on the other hand, they licked us, the problem would be solved anyway … But if they didn’t lick us, or if there was no one there in the first place, we could begin to build. We’d start with a couple of square miles of territory – backs to the sea and all that stuff. We’d clear it of all the livestock we didn’t want and erect fences, barricades, ditches – anything to keep the rest out. Then as we grew we’d gobble up a bit more territory each year.’ He laughed. ‘A couple of generations from now, who knows, we might even get as far as Devon. Ten generations from now – providing we don’t get another good dose of solar radiation – we would very likely get as far as holding a general election and filling the Houses of Parliament with people who couldn’t do any real harm … Now tell me I’m too far gone.’

‘You’re far gone,’ said Meg. ‘But aren’t we all … You said something about collecting women, I believe. We need women very badly.’

‘Unless something drastic has happened,’ said Greville, ‘and we can’t rule that out of course, there’s a remarkable character called Father Jack who has
about thirty women at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Newmarket … I think if we put the proposition to him in the right way, he might join us. But that we wouldn’t know until and unless we sent someone to tell him all about the idea … I think he’d join us if only because one man can’t hope to survive a lot of bloody females for ever. He’s quite a character, is Father Jack. He saved our lives once – on a purely commercial basis, of course.’

Greville felt exhausted. He was amazed at himself. He was amazed at the unfounded optimism, the glib talk, the unreasonable assumptions. He was amazed even that Meg and Joseph had heard him out. Most of all he was amazed that they did not laugh.

The scheme was hair-brained, impractical and doomed. It was nothing more than a sick man’s fancy, a wish-fulfilment for a man so traumatised at the prospect of becoming a daddy that he was busy building new Jerusalems out of daydreams and a high temperature.

There was quite a long silence.

‘It’s mad enough to have a chance of working,’ muttered Joseph almost as if to himself.

‘He’s stupid enough and dangerous enough to make it work,’ said Meg grimly. She turned to Greville. ‘I suppose we’ll have to make you emperor, as well.’

Greville smiled. ‘No. I’ve just thought of a nice democratic safeguard. We’ll have a monarchy but no king. I’ll be simply the king’s general … If you ever get a king, he’ll be able to sack me.’

‘Where did you say this convent of the whatnot was?’

‘Newmarket.’

‘You think your Father Jack would agree?’

‘If he doesn’t, we could always beg, borrow or steal … But he will.’

‘You know,’ said Meg thoughtfully, ‘I’m beginning to think that any direction is better than no direction … How would you propose to open up negotiations with Father Jack?’

‘I’d write him a letter.’

‘So all we need now,’ said Joseph drily, ‘is faith and a gentleman with a cleft stick … You’re a fool, Greville. An absolute fool. But then history was made by fools … I’m very much afraid we’re going to have to make you the king’s general, after all.’

Liz joined in the conversation for the first time. She threw joined the bed clothes and gazed at her stomach in amazement. ‘It’s quickened,’ she exclaimed. ‘I feel as if I’ve just swallowed a squirrel with a big bushy tail.’

It was spring – a riotous and intoxicating spring that, coming after a fairly mild and wet February, had covered the land with a carpet of green and the trees with a thick powdering of buds almost a month earlier than it should have done.

Greville was riding with three other heavily armed men in a jeep along a weed-covered road where bumps and pot-holes were giving him considerable anxiety; for Liz, travelling with some of the women in a large truck about a hundred yards behind him, was in the last month of her pregnancy. The baby could arrive any time. But he did not want it to arrive on the road to Newmarket. The entire company – a hundred and twenty-three people – would rest up for a few days at the Convent of the Sacred Heart before they took the road once more to Cornwall. That would be the ideal time for Liz to have her baby. Then she could get a bit of strength back before they started on the last leg of the journey.

The jeep stopped, and the column of vehicles behind it stopped, as they had stopped once every half-mile or so all the way from Leicestershire. Presently the two motor-cycle outriders who had been forging ahead roared back into view and waved them on, signifying that the next half-mile of road was clear and navigable.

The jeep jerked forward once more and continued at the leisurely speed of fifteen miles an hour. The odd assortment of cars, vans, trucks and station wagons behind it dutifully kept the regulation convoy distance of fifty yards between each vehicle.

Looking back over the last few months, Greville was still surprised at the speed with which his ideas had been accepted by Meg and Joseph and the group of people they represented. He was even more surprised at the speed and ease with which he had assumed the role of ‘king’s general’. At first he had taken his office lightly, seeing it as no more than a temporary expedient for getting things done. At first the title itself had been no more than a joke, invented on the spur of the moment. But the joke had a hidden subtlety; and the title had stuck. It had amused everyone. It had provided a necessary focus for their sense of the absurd.

Only a monarch could depose the king’s general. But there was no monarch. And if ever the group got tired of Greville’s autocracy they would have to create a greater autocrat to bring it to an end. For the present, however,
they were content. Greville had offered them something more than mere personal survival: he had offered purpose and direction. The odd thing was, he reflected, that even transies needed something in which to believe, some concept of a future that it was possible to build.

The joke, Greville realised, was on himself. He had never imagined that he really possessed qualities of leadership. He had never imagined that he could accept responsibility for the fate of an entire community. Yet here he was, a white-haired if rather juvenile Moses, leading a small tribe of crazy and credulous human beings to a promised Land’s End.

Land’s End … The finality of the title itself was symbolic. For if one was going to make a new beginning where better to start than at Land’s End.

Greville moved his arm and felt a dull stab in his shoulder. The wound had healed beautifully; but there was always a stiffness when it was going to rain. He looked at the sky – clear blue with a few puffy white clouds. But he knew it was going to rain. The shoulder never lied.

The jeep stopped once more. One of the motor-cycle outriders, a boy of perhaps eighteen, roared back to it, pulled up with a flourish and a screech of brakes, and saluted Greville. ‘The convent is just over a mile ahead, sir.’ He grinned. ‘We made contact with their day-guard … Dead smashing!’

‘Go back and tell Father Jack we’ll be with him in ten minutes,’ said Greville. ‘Tell him not to worry about food or sleeping arrangements. All we’ll need will be a bit of space.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The boy saluted again and slapped the butt of the rifle that was slung over his shoulder. Then he roared off again.

It was funny, thought Greville, how so many of the young ones had developed a sudden enthusiasm for military etiquette. They stood to attention at the drop of a hat. They saluted like mad. And they seemed to compete with each other in every possible way to obtain the favour of the king’s general. He hoped it wasn’t an omen. He had no intention of founding a military state.

Poor Joseph! Poor Meg! Nobody seemed to pay much attention to them these days. And how they hated the efficiency and discipline that Greville had imposed. Perhaps they saw him as an anachronism – a sort of fascist dinosaur that wouldn’t lie down.

And yet whenever Greville talked with them in public, he made a great point of being deferential. He wanted everyone to know that the king’s general existed only on sufferance. Oddly enough nobody seemed convinced. The prevailing attitude seemed to be that Meg and Joseph – the remains of an ineffectual triumvirate – existed on sufferance, and it amused Greville to make them feel they were necessary as advisers.