Future Tense (5 page)

“Give it to me,” I said.

He advanced and handed it to me. I got off the bed.

“Will this open the attic door?”

“I have never tried, sir.”

“Now, Bentley,” I said. “I want you to take off your shoes, climb in this bed, and pretend to be me.”

“Pretend to be you, sir? Certainly, sir,” he said. And without a moment's hesitation, he slipped his shoes off and started to get on the bed.

“No. Under the covers, Bentley.” I said.

“Under the covers, sir? Certainly, sir.”

I tucked him in and headed for the door. “Goodnight, Bentley,” I said, blowing out the candles on my way out.

“Goodnight, sir.”

* * *

I made my way back up to the attic door, inserted the master key in the lock, and turned it. It opened.

All this for a cold beer, I was thinking, as I threw a row of light switches I felt on the wall, just inside the door. Fluorescent lights bonged and flickered on throughout the length and breadth of the enormous attic. I blinked as my eyes adjusted to the unaccustomed brightness. I was expecting to find a full-size bowling alley, but what I found turned my legs to jelly and made my jaw drop open.

I was staring at a huge glass tank of greenish-yellow water, an enormous aquarium with a strange light dappling through it from the surface.

I tried to say something back to Jemmons, who was immersed in the tank and chained to a sort of cage thing, resting on the bottom. There were two clear tubes fitted to a mask on his face and columns of bubbles were streaming from his nose, but he could see me and was trying to communicate. Unfortunately, my eyes were quickly distracted by another pair of eyes, also staring out at me from under the luminous green water. Every hair on my body was crawling. It was a giant squid. Two of its tentacles suddenly moved and their suckers attached to the glass, like horrible toothless mouths. I cringed. I moved just my eyes back to the terrified Jemmons and now noticed several round weals all over the exposed parts of his body. I shook my head slightly. Jemmons's eyes widened in horror as I began stepping backwards, away from the tank. I swivelled my eyeballs slowly back to the squid as I retreated and attempted a smile, but it must have looked more like a grimace, because I could hardly control my jaw. The creature's mouth flared open malevolently and it showed me its fearsome beak. That was too much for me. I screamed and turned tail and ran, straight into the arms of my father, who was just coming to the top of the steps.

“Squid thing!” I blurted. “It's got Jemmons!”

“Calm down, I can explain everything,” said the Duck, calmly switching off all the lights and relocking the door.

“He's in there!” I cried. “You can't leave him in there with that thing!”

“That wasn't Roger,” laughed the Duck, patting me on the back and guiding me back down the steps. “What do you take me for? That was a replicant—one of Roger's alternative time-flux clones—a fully developed one I keep for emergencies.”

“This is an emergency—Roger's being eaten alive!”

“I told you—that wasn't the real Jemmons,” said the Duck.

“Well, he looked real enough to me!” I said. “He was crying!”

“Don't be daft—how can you tell if someone's crying if they're underwater?”

“He was crying I tell you! His face was like this.” I pulled a wailing baby face. “And his body was covered in wounds where that thing had been at him. It was horrible! A bowling alley you told me—that thing could stand all the pins up in one go! What the hell is it?”

“Don't upset yourself. Let's just get you back to bed, you've got a busy day tomorrow,” said the Duck.

“Busy day? I could be dead by breakfast time!” I pulled up as we reached the first corner and turned back. “I'm going back up there to get Roger.”

The Duck gripped my arm. “No you're not. How many times do I have to tell you? That was not Roger. Roger is being held prisoner in the Castle.”

“Well, I want to talk to that one up there. Just to put my mind at rest.”

“He's a replicant—replicants can't hold proper conversations, they just copy what you do and mimic what you say,” said the Duck. “That's probably what it was doing—it saw you were upset, so it copied you.”

“Upset? I was bloody petrified!”

“Well, there you go then.”

I swallowed hard and stared up at the door. Believe me, I didn't need much persuading not to go back up into that attic, Roger or no Roger.

“All right. What's that squid doing up there anyway?” I said.

We carried on down the steps.

“It's a pet,” smiled the Duck.

“A pet? You expect me to believe that thing is a pet? It's a monster!”

“Its Latin name is Architeuthis clarkei, and you're quite right, Stephen, it is a big squid,” said the Duck. “But that's only a baby one. They—”

“—A baby one!” I exclaimed.

“An adult Architeuthis clarkei can grow up to two hundred feet long,” said the Duck.

“Well, what the hell have you put it up there for? It should be swimming around in a bigger tank—like the North Atlantic!”

“Brunswick was born in captivity—he'd be lost out there in the ocean.”

“Lost? He'd only have to stick out one of his tentacles and he could feel Canada!”

We stepped over the red rope.

“You've had a shock,” the Duck said. “But it is only an aquarium. Lots of people keep exotic pets—boa constrictors, tarantulas, vampire bats—”

“—Yeah, but even Dr Frankenstein wouldn't give that thing house room!”

“Brunswick is not a monster!” he insisted. “You are just being squidist, Stephen, and I won't have it! Architeuthis clarkei is a very intelligent lifeform—I mean, animal.”

“All right, but why did you lie to me about the bowling alley then?” I said. “Ah, you can't answer that one, can you?”

“The bowling alley is on the other side of the aquarium,” blinked the Duck. “I thought the tank made a nice backdrop to the lanes.”

“Backdrop? I wouldn't fancy turning my back on that thing—how far can those tentacles reach?”

“Brunswick is not a thing,” said the Duck. “His feeding tentacles are about thirty feet long.”

“Feeding tentacles? How many has he got?”

“Five pairs.”

“Yeah, and a beak the size of a skip.”

“Did you know that of all the living creatures on the planet the one with the biggest eyes is a fully grown Architeuthis clarkei?” said the Duck.

“All the better to see you with in the darkei,” I said.

We came to my bedroom door.

“By the way,” said the Duck, “I'll have that master key back.”

I handed it over, with a shaking hand.

“See you in the morning,” said the Duck. “Bright and early. You can get some shooting practice on the terrace.”

“Better late than never,” I said. “I hope you know what you're doing, because I don't.”

“No worries.” He tapped his big nose. “Leave everything to me. We'll show that flash French fop what the Duckworths are made of.”

“Just the exterior parts I hope.”

“I'll bid thee goodnight,” said the Duck.

“And the same to you,” I said. “Oh, I almost forgot—we'll have to call the duel off—I've damaged my trigger finger.” I showed him my broken nail.

“Hm, nasty. I'll get you something for that in the morning. Sleep tight.”

“You expect me to sleep?”

He looked back. “I left you a little nightcap on your nightstand.”

“Does it come with a matching bullet-proof vest?”

“Not that sort of nightcap. Don't worry—everything's in hand. Just leave it all to me.”

I watched him waddle off down the hall. He stopped and waved to me, and then turned right down the master staircase. I let myself in and lay on my bed, fully clothed. My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in the dark. I drank my nightcap and closed my eyes.

“Goodnight, sir,” said a voice.

“Goodnight, Bentley.”

* * *

And I slept the sleep of the damned, knowing that just the other side of the scallop-patterned rococo ceiling there was another giant member of the mollusc family. I kept expecting a tentacle to crash through the plaster mouldings and grab me up into that tank. I promised never to eat shellfish again, if I survived the night. But then I remembered that if I did survive the night I might die in my duel with De Quipp. What, I got to thinking, if his pistol did backfire, as the Duck assured me it would, and then I fired and missed, and De Quipp, meanwhile, recovered and reloaded and got a shot in? He would only need one. I decided on a back-up plan. If the chain of events I just described did happen, I was going to run like hell.

Chapter 3

Something was tickling my nose. I tried to brush it away, but it came back. I swiped at it again. And then I remembered that tentacle.

“Aaaagh!” I screamed, jumping off the bed. I ended up on the floor, face to face with the Duck. He was clutching a large wooden box to his chest.

“Get off me,” he said, clambering to his feet. He brushed himself down and opened the box to check the contents. “You could have damaged 'em, you idiot.”

“Don't creep around,” I warned him, jabbing my finger in his face.

He produced a long barrelled gun from the case.

I leapt away from him. “What the hell's that?”

“A genuine Wogdon duelling pistol. Here, stick this plaster over your nail and you can get a feel.”

I wrapped the modern plaster round my finger, without taking my eyes off the beautiful long-barrelled pistol.

“There, what do you think?” he said, passing it to me, handle first. “Try that for weight.”

I grabbed it and got the feel of it, pretended to shoot things around the room.

“Don't wave it about,” said the Duck.

“Is it loaded?”

“Oh, yeah,” said the Duck sarcastically.

I pulled the trigger and the big hammer thing sprang down on the other bit with a dull clunk.

“Watch it!” exclaimed the Duck, ducking out of the way. “Here, give me that!”

He tried to snatch it out of my hand. I hung on to it and we wrestled.

“Naff off!” I said.

“Give me that bloody gun!” he quacked.

We struggled some more and then I let him have it.

The Duck cleaned it off on the gold embroidered sleeve of his black silk frock coat and carefully replaced it in its box.

“That's an antique,” he grumbled. “Worth a lot of money.”

“Put a bullet in it for me then—you said I needed a bit of practice,” I said, quite fancying a go.

“It's a muzzle-loader,” he said. “You don't use bullets, you use a ball. You ignoramus.”

“I just want to make sure it works,” I said. “I don't trust you.”

“It'll work. He's the one with the problem,” nodded the Duck.

“So, what do I do when his blows up in his face then?” I said, sitting on the edge of the bed to pull my boots on.

“Let him have it,” said the Duck, making his hand into a gun and miming what I should do. “Make my day.”

“Seems a bit unfair,” I said.

“Unfair? It's him or you, mate!” cried the Duck. “Blow that sucker away!”

“Yeah, I know, but, all the same, it's a bit one-sided,” I said. “I mean, I might, you know, hurt him badly without really meaning to.”

“You mean kill him,” said the Duck.

“Well. We're not playing tiddlywinks.”

“Don't worry—you won't hit him—you'll be fifty feet away. You couldn't hit the side of a bus with one of these things from that range,” said the Duck.

“I might.”

“No way,” said the Duck. “No. All you do when he goes down is raise your pistol in the air, like this, say: no contest, Monsieur, and empty the barrel in the sky.”

“So why are we bothering to practise?” I asked.

“That's what we'll be practising,” said the Duck. “I want to make sure you don't hit anybody. Me, for example. Come on—the sun's nearly up.”

I smiled. “I like the sound of this. I'm going to come across as a right hero when I discharge my pistol in the air.” I put on a French accent. “No contest, Monsieur—blam!”

“And this sort of thing spreads through the Gloucestershire set like a dose of the clap. The Duckworth family name will be solid gold round here, mate. I wouldn't be surprised if we get invited to a few top drawer balls,” said the Duck. “Never know—might get you married off.”

“Behave. I'm spoken for. Will Emma be watching?”

“Sorry, no women allowed on a field of honour. It's bad luck.”

“Well, it's always bad luck for one of 'em, isn't it?”

“You just want to show off—it's not allowed! But don't worry, I'll make sure she hears about what a hero you were.”

I straightened my cravat. “Just make sure she never finds out what really occurred.”

“No worries. Just go out there and enjoy yourself, my son. It's your day.”

I slapped his shoulder. “Thanks, Duck,” I said. “You know, I had my reservations about this, but now I see what you were up to.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. All you're interested in is making a name for yourself with your new neighbours.”

“Guilty,” smiled the Duck. “You got it in one.”

“Don't worry, it's cool,” I said. “I know what you're like, but I do see you've worked this so we both get what we want for a change.”

“You get your brains from your father,” he grinned.

* * *

We walked down the main staircase, side by side, two resolute figures, determined to uphold the family honour—whatever the cost to Monsieur De Quipp! There's something ennobling about walking to a field of honour at the crack of dawn, with your second, even when you know the duel has been fixed and you can't lose.

We crossed the elegant black and white chequered hall and entered the long gallery, passing all the paintings and household antiques my father had acquired recently. I wondered who all the noble figures in the portraits were. Okay, they were not ancestors, I know, but I felt sure they would have been proud of what I was doing, as long as you left out the bit about the cheating.

“Who's the guy in the ermine robe?” I asked, as we walked under a huge oil painting of a curly wigged Restoration-type with rosy cheeks.

“Dunno,” replied the Duck.

“What about her?” I said, pointing at the full-length portrait of an equine-nosed young lady in a blue silk ball gown, leaning against a Palladian pillar.

“I think she's German,” replied the Duck.

“Don't we have any real ancestor paintings?” I said.

“I'm going to get a few done—you, me, Emily and Emma—the kids—might even make up a few,” he said.

“You could get Turner to do them,” I said.

“No. He's too expensive. I know this bloke in Soho. You just send him some Polaroids, slip him a few quid, and he'll knock off as many as you want, all in period costume.”

“That's right,” I said, “do it properly.”

“When do I have time to sit? I'm a hunted man. Besides, there's no money in portraits—nobody buys 'em.”

The English aristocracy say that if you have to buy your own furniture, you are not a true aristocrat. Well, my old man bought his as a job lot, but at least he knew the makers personally.

We reached the end that backed onto the east terrace. Bentley was waiting for us with two glasses of Dutch courage on a silver tray.

“Cheers, Benters,” said the Duck. He passed me mine. “There you go, Son, get that down you. Jamaican rum, from my plantation. That'll put hairs on your vest.”

“I hope you're not a slaver,” I said.

“Do me a favour,” said the Duck. “I only bought it as an investment. I've never even been out there.”

“Well, I don't suppose it matters,” I said. “They'll be banning slavery in 1807, anyway.”

Bentley raised an eyebrow.

“Probably,” I added.

Bentley took our empty glasses.

“Thanks, Bentley,” I said.

“May one be permitted to wish you good luck, sir?” he inquired.

“You may,” said the Duck.

“The very best of luck, sir,” said Bentley. “I hope you win.”

“Thanks, Bentley.”

“He won't need any luck, Benters,” said the Duck. “His opponent's only a Frenchman.”

“To be sure, sir,” said Bentley.

“And no match for a Duckworth,” I added, getting into the swing of the thing.

“I hope not, sir. I'm offering very good odds for you,” said Bentley. He set off on the long walk back up the gallery.

“Odds?” I called.

“Just a harmless flutter, sir.”

“On my life? How long?”

“Two hundred to one, sir,” replied Bentley.

“I'm not that confident, Bentley.”

“Against, sir.”

“Against?” I turned to the Duck. “Does he know about the you know what?” I whispered.

“Er…”

“You said you wouldn't tell anyone!”

“I only told Benters—he's just taking a few side bets for me. At odds of two-hundred to one against—the punters are ripping his arm off!”

“You're running a book on your son's life? Haven't you got any scruples?”

“I couldn't resist it. Anyway, we can't lose.” He tapped his box of pistols. “We've got an edge.”

“Edge? That's a bloody cliff! It's cheating.”

“I prefer the term
creative certainty
.”

“This is all a tissue of lies, isn't it?” I said. “This whole set-up—the house, the title. What are you doing back here in this snobby society? You'll never fit in round here. You've only got one principle—get in first and do unto others before they do unto you. You'd be better off hobnobbing with the mob in twentieth century Las Vegas.”

“I've got a condo in Vegas,” said the Duck.

“Well, why don't you go and live in it?”

He opened the tall terrace doors for me.

“I'm sick of all this pretence.”

“I'm an antiques dealer. This is where all the best stuff is,” said the Duck.

We both stepped outside into the chill March air. The morning mists were still hanging in the trees and there was a muffled stillness everywhere.

“Give me that gun,” I said.

The Duck opened the case as we walked to the terrace parapet and handed me a pistol.

“Sure this is the right one?” I said. “That's a point—how am I going to know which one's mine? They both look the same.”

“Not a problem,” said the Duck.

“Not for you maybe. You'll be hiding behind a tree.”

“As the challenged,” he said, patiently, “it is your privilege to have first dibs. Now, I will hold the case open towards you like this.” He demonstrated.

“Right.”

“No, left,” said the Duck. “You choose the pistol with its butt on the left—the one you're holding. Got that—the left?”

“The left? Right.”

“No—the left!”

“Yeah, all right, I know which side's my left,” I said. “Here, hang on—your left or my left?”

“We'd better make up something, so you don't forget,” he said. “I know—left—that's ‘L' for loaded. Got that?”

“And ‘R' for reject—I reject the right one,” I said.

“No, the right one is on the left,” said the Duck.

“Oh, shut up. Just point to the bloody thing!”

I aimed down at bushes and statues in the formal garden below us, and pretended to blow them away, with sound effects. Blam! Blam-blam! Pow!

“Give me that!” said the Duck.

I held it out of his reach and made him jump for it, till he gave up trying to take it off me.

“All right,” he said. “Show me how you're going to shoot into the air after De Quipp goes down.”

I pointed directly up into the air and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened, of course, because it wasn't loaded, so I did the sound effect. Blam! And the echo. Bla-blam!

“No,” said the Duck.

“Yeah, well, I'll just do it my way,” I said, tired of all his fussing.

“If you fire it straight up like that, you could have your eye out!”

“How?” I said sceptically.

“Give it here, I'll show you.”

I reluctantly handed over the gun.

He demonstrated. “If you hold it right up above your head, like you had it, you'll have bits of hot lead and powder sparks falling straight down in your eyes. Hold it out like this—he held his arm out and bent it at the elbow—and discharge it away from your body, but directly up in the air. Got it?”

“Yeah. Give it here then.”

“No, it's going away now, till we get there.”

“Call that a practice? I haven't even fired the bloody thing yet!”

“Ammunition costs money.” He put the gun carefully back in its brown baize lined case and shut it. “Come on, this way.”

He dashed off down some steps on the eastern side of the house, leading to the formal garden. I followed on his heels. And caught him up.

“How far is it?”

“Not far. See those beech trees?”

There was a line of beech trees running parallel, but far to the left of the main avenue of trees—which, I think, were limes—and the Duck had indicated these. They seemed to border a level path going to a small bridge over a stream. It being early spring, they were not yet in leaf, but there were rookeries in the high branches, and the residents were stirring and drying their feathers in the sun, which was just beginning to break through. They let out a few piercing cackles as we approached.

You know that feeling you get sometimes when something just doesn't feel right? Well, I was getting it in spades.

We had traversed the garden, with its topiary and symmetrical hedging, and were just going down the verdant slope to the stream. It should have been a walk in the park, but it felt more like a walk in the dark.

“Wait,” I said.

The Duck stopped and turned about. “What is it now?”

“I don't see De Quipp,” I said.

“He'll be here,” said the Duck.

I looked back at the house. It seemed impossibly large, sitting there in the perfect green landscape, with its neo-classical arches and pillars, and sheer walls, streaked with grime—like an illusion.

“There's something wrong. I can feel it.”

“Your senses are working overtime. The old adrenalin's pumping.”

“Is that what it is?” I gazed around me. “Everything just feels different.”