Out of Time (7 page)

He expected to be noticed at once, but because the wall came up so high on his body he was still concealed from the marketplace. He waited a moment, then put
the machine on top of the wall to free his hands, levered himself up, grabbed the machine and dropped to the ground on the other side.

For the few seconds that this took he did not have time to look at the people in the marketplace, but as he landed on the stone pavement, facing the wall, he felt a prickling in his back and a dryness in his throat. He gripped the machine even more tightly, taking care to align his thumb with the Return button again, before turning to face the Indians.

A silence had descended over the market: a silence so sudden and complete that it was hard to believe a clamour of voices had filled the air a moment earlier. Sweating all over now, not just in his hot hands and wet armpits, James looked up at the Mayans.

They were all frozen, all quiet, gazing at him. Most had drawn together, had sidled across to each other, so that James was now standing alone. One, a man of about twenty, still on his own, caught James' eye and quickly, almost guiltily, scuttled into a group. A large highly coloured bird suddenly flapped into the sky from a wall behind a pottery stall. Triggered by its movement a number of similar birds arose from other points along the concourse and flew to join it. They clustered and perched on a branch of a tree away to James' left.

The machine, and its silent assurance that it could extricate him instantly, gave James some confidence. Not a lot, but some. He moved a metre forward. There was no response among the Indians. Even a baby,
about twelve months old, sitting on the ground nearby, gazed at him with unwavering concentration. James took another step. Then, to his own surprise, in a high nervous voice, he said:

‘I don't want to cause any trouble. My name's James. I just wanted to visit you.'

Here and there various spectators exchanged glances. James knew they could not understand his words but he was hopeful that they might understand the tenor of his message. He waited for a minute to see if anything would happen, but there was still no movement. So he walked to where the baby sat, and patted its head. A woman standing nearby emitted a low slow hiss. The baby, for no apparent reason, started crying. James, watching the crowd intently, still gripping the machine, went to a small cooking fire beside an array of food. He selected a sweet potato, picked it up and bit into it. Someone in the crowd called out. There was a murmur, and a shifting of feet. Suddenly a boy ran forward. He looked younger than James, but because of the small build of these people it was hard to tell. He stood a metre from James, gazing with a startled look into his face. He seemed startled at his own impetuosity. The two boys locked eyes and stared in fascination and fear at each other. James noticed that the boy was holding a knife and, realising that he might not react fast enough if the boy went to stab him, he nearly pressed the Return key there and then. But he resisted the temptation. He wanted to break the intense eye-contact but was scared to, thinking that it might be
interpreted as a sign of weakness. Instead he groped with his right hand for another sweet potato and, finding one, brought it up between the two of them. Without taking his eyes off the other boy he took a bite out of the vegetable and then handed it to the Mayan. Slowly, after a long, long pause, the boy bit a large piece out of it with his clean white teeth, then chewed and swallowed.

There was a roar from the onlookers. The tension had been broken by this simple act. People started to move toward them. James, fearful of being mobbed, held up his hand, and the movement stopped. He grinned at the boy. The Indian looked at him without smiling, but James was reassured by the lively intelligence of his dark eyes, just as he was struck, incongruously, by the largeness of the boy's nose. The boy pointed towards the southern end of the concourse and said something in his own language. He took a few steps in that direction, indicating that James should follow. James saw no harm in doing so. The two boys began walking through the Indians, weaving in and out of the colourful market display. Most people stood their ground as they passed; a few stepped back a little, a few reached out a hand and touched James curiously. He was embarrassed, but also exultant.

They left the market, skirting around a number of two-storey stone and plaster buildings, and started out along a vast arena with huge pyramids at the end of it. James gaped at the scale of it all. Behind him he became aware that the crowd had fallen into line, and more
people were joining all the time. He checked again that the machine, now finely laced with drops of his sweat, was still in his hand. He even quickly flicked it on to check the battery indicator, and was relieved to see that the needle went to seven.

The pyramids, fronted by giant staircases and topped by ornate structures that looked like tombs or altars, were looming closer. The boys passed complex carved slabs of stone. The crowd behind them seemed to be hesitating, falling back. But the Mayan boy led on confidently. He went within fifty metres of several of the biggest pyramids without looking at them. At last a possible destination was revealed to James by the focus of the boy's eyes and the undeviating course of his walk. They seemed to be aiming at a smaller building at the edge of the plaza: again made of stone, and, windowless, resembling a couple of huge coffins of different sizes, piled on top of each other. As they came closer James realised that the building was beside a hole some ten metres in diameter. A few people stood at regular intervals around the hole, but no-one else seemed to be nearby. They were all men, dressed more elaborately than the people in the market. Their costumes were fuller around the waist and they wore spectacular headdresses, which, in their rich plumage of feathers and leaves, blended easily with the background of the dense green jungle that pressed so close to the end of the plaza.

The men, who had dark skin and large noses like James' guide, looked steadily and impassively at James
for a minute, then, without moving from their places, began questioning the Indian boy. His answers were brief but given without hesitation. The men turned their attention to James again and indicated that he should stand on a certain spot, close to the edge of the hole. Feeling increasingly fearful he nevertheless obeyed. As he stepped to the new position one of the men moved in behind him and stood very close, up against his back. James could now see that the crowd had stopped some distance away and was hushed. All were watching. He was startled to see how many people there were.

Looking down, he saw that he was standing on the edge of some kind of natural well. A smell of mould and mildew filled it. He could see green water about twenty metres below. Although it was dim and in shadow he thought there were large objects, dark and bulky, breaking the surface of the water. A few metres away, to his left, a sudden clatter and shriek startled him horribly and he jerked and looked around, heart jumping. It was a bird, glaringly golden and black, but quite small. It flew rapidly out of some vines and across the pool in front of him, beating its wings noisily.

Before he had even looked away another startling and horrible cry came to him. This time it was unmistakeably human. It came from the well at his feet. Rigid with astonishment he looked down. He thought he saw a face in the water, perhaps looking up at him. Though he had never heard the shriek of a drowning man he had not a moment's doubt as to the meaning of this cry.
He became taller, and whiter, stretching and gazing down with open mouth at the green mysteries in the shadowy hole. He looked across at the face of his young guide, searching for a clue, a lead. The boy looked back at him guileless, interested, alert. James started to twist around to say something, though he was unsure of what the words would be, but the man behind him placed a heavy hand on each of his shoulders and kept him weighed down on the spot. The man spoke; clear, loud words in a deep and dark voice. It sounded like a proclamation. James, obscurely, felt obliged to play his part. He stood still, half-listening to the wise voice. Then, suddenly, the man pushed him hard in the back, and he fell.

Falling, jerking, falling, his stomach still up at the brink: he saw a circle of blue, and dark shapes, then dim soft green. He was dropping into smell. The whole thing was too astonishing to understand. The only emotion was fear. No thinking, just feeling, and the only feeling fear. He hit the water but it was not all water: he half-landed on something soft and bulgy, with hard lines in it. He understood that it was human, a body. Suddenly he was grabbed with manic force: an arm clamped across his chest and a fierce, desperate, dark face, with a big nose, was staring into his. James' mouth, his whole face, was open wide with horror. His face was in the shape of a scream but no sound came. The man was pressing him down, pushing and forcing him down. James was drowning in a silent struggle. He could not seize on a single thought that might save him.
There was no room for that, just for gaping unformed fear. His face was under the water twice, three times. The man had ceased to be a human, if indeed he had ever been one. Now he was a force, an idea, evil. James floundered.

As he had known in the ocean, so again he knew in a part of his mind that there was something that could save him. It was not a considered, rational thought but he knew there was something, and it was in his hand, and it was the key to his survival. A part of him that was not dying struggled with this knowledge. A persistent voice told him to press. Press? Press what? It doesn't matter, just press. He pressed. Nothing happened. With no air left, nothing left, he went under again. The lights in his head focused themselves, concentrated, then began to resolve themselves into one bright coin of light. Then the light, while not fading in brightness, began to withdraw in distance, to travel away from him, at a faster and faster pace. It was a bright strong distant spot, becoming a pinpoint. ‘Wrong finger,' James thought, if it was a thought. He gave a faint, flickering tremble of his thumb.

He was lying on hard earth. It was dark until he realised his eyes were closed. He did not open them for quite some time. He was frightened of what he might see. When he did open them he saw an apple tree in the back yard of the house in which he lived. He lay there a long time, eyes closed, breathing deeply, in a kind of sleep. Afterwards he got up and went into the house. The woman who was there said to him, ‘James! Where
have you been? We wanted to go to Grandma's but we couldn't find you. So Daddy's gone on his own.' He went upstairs like an old man. As he came to his sister's room he moved across and passed by on the other side of the corridor, looking down at the floor.

JAMES SAT ON
a swing in the playground, rocking rhythmically to and fro. It was rare for him to get a swing to himself but at the moment the craze was yoyos and most of the kids were absorbed in them. Some days the rocking motion of the swings made him sick; other days it was restful. Today it felt good.

A little way off were Ellie's old friends, most of them anyway. He watched them covertly. They seemed to be having fun. He wondered how they could and was angry that they were.

It had been raining hard most of the morning and the rain looked as though it was likely to start again soon. Large brown puddles lay morosely around the playground. James studied the one at his feet, then began kicking loosely at it, enough to disturb it violently but not to scatter it. Then he stopped suddenly, noticing a struggle in the water. He looked more closely and realised that he had washed a small insect into the puddle. It was fluttering its water-heavy wings frantically, trying to escape. James watched it for a moment, then used the edge of a dead leaf to lift the insect clear. He put it on dry ground, but the black and gold creature, waterlogged, moved only feebly. James felt
that there was nothing more he could do for it. He left it there to dry out and wandered away from the swing, back towards the school buildings. He walked along, thinking of the religious people in India whom he had heard about – the ones who took care, whenever they moved, to harm nothing. Even ants were safe from their light footfalls. James wondered whether the invention of the microscope, and the discovery of all the teeming microscopic life in the world had changed their attitudes. Did they know that every time they moved they destroyed masses of minute creatures? Just to live was to cause pain.

Coming from the classroom block was Dr Matheson, a teacher whom James liked. James was approaching the buildings at a tangent: he had circled from the swing around the back of the boys' toilets. Nevertheless, their paths were going to cross. He became nervous as the encounter grew closer. But he stopped when they met, and stood looking at the ground.

‘Hello James,' Dr Matheson said in her husky voice. ‘I've got something here I thought you might be interested in.'

James looked up and saw a small flat object in her hand. She held it out to him and he took it. It was a maze, three-dimensional, fully enclosed, containing a metal ball which had to be guided through many objects and traps to reach a central spot. It appealed to James, who liked challenges of a mechanical kind. He smiled. Dr Matheson was delighted.

‘Take it,' she said. ‘Keep it for a few days, or until
you're sick of it. Later I'll give it to my niece. She enjoys that kind of thing too.'

James walked on, clutching it to his chest. He bypassed the classroom and went to the janitor's cupboard. Knowing that the class after lunch was Divinity and he would not be missed he stayed there until his next lesson, at 2.15.

‘WHEN THE WAR
is over,' the girl thought, ‘I will lie under a tree chewing on a piece of grass. I will kick a pebble along a street. I will plant a flower garden and water it and keep it free of weeds. I will smell ripe peaches.'

She closed her eyes again, hoping that the next time she opened them she would not see only darkness, only cold and hard rock. Her leg hurt a lot but the hurt had settled into a dull ache, instead of the spectacular flaring pain that had savaged her for many hours. She preferred the dull ache.