Sand Glass (23 page)

‘The knife can
last in any time place. But it cannot be used by one who does not
have a connection with it. The connection must be made, and only
then you will have the means to sever the connection with this
world for others like yourself.’

‘What must I
do?’ I had that uneasy feeling again. I decided I was too easily
spooked. I breathed in and relaxed consciously. I looked at Heelio
again.

‘I must mark
you. As the tribe have marked you before.’ He indicated the tattoo,
‘Now you know it can bring you here.’

‘You will show
me how it can make me send people back.’ I said in a breathless
voice.

‘Be still. The
drink will make this simple. It is a moment. A calm one. Just
reveal the mark of your tribe. Then we can give it greater power.
You have to give your consent. And then I will make the mark.’

‘I understand.’
I pulled my sleeve back, and gritted my teeth.

‘Be calm son.
Just tell me of your consent and then the pain is lost into the
earth and dissolves. Do you see?’

A set of
soothing images flitted in and out of my mind. I felt the handle of
a fishing rod in my hand; wooden and smooth and the resistance as
something pulled on the line and I held it firmly. A memory. Then
my mother digging trenches ready for planting. I took an old spade
and pressed hard with the handle into the rich earth making it
ready as I had seen her do. The wood was burnished with many
summers, and oiled by many hands. ‘I consent.’ I said, and then
thought of the canal trip I took. A group of us winding lock gate
paddles and pushing the gates open and closed. I felt the heavy
wooden beam that swung the gate, and how it took three lads to push
it and start it moving. It was smooth and warm under my fingers. A
solid and useful thing. Something that served a good purpose that
had been there for a very long time.

I looked down.
Beads of red welled up. Three there were, where the point had
entered in each heart except the last. The knife was laid on the
table and was completely clean. I looked at Heelio. He did not
appear to have moved at all. And except that the knife was not in
the sheath I would not have known as I had felt nothing.

‘Do not touch
it. Let the drops fall and then you will see. Out of time is the
knife. Out of time is the one who takes it into their hands.’

I felt then a
warmth. A strange kind of quiet that travelled all around me. It
was like when Jared had spoken words over me and laid his hands on
me letting the healing flow. I felt strangely light too. As if some
oddly heavy bubble had been pricked and I had let a peculiar burden
fall. The drops fell one by one to the ground. Heelio held a linen
wrapping strip in his hands. He took hold of my hand. ‘Now I will
bind this. Do not look at it at all. And when you remember
tomorrow, look then if you wish. But it does not matter if you do
not see. And whatever you do or not do, tell no one this while you
still walk in our land. I know that your home has different ways,
and the stories you tell, are not like the secrets you keep. But
here it is better not to tell.’

All that
evening I hardly spoke, except a few murmured words of thanks. I
had sunk into myself; it seemed so deeply that even Janey came over
to me and asked if I would like a yellow fruit. She was still
certain she was going to leave the next day. I asked her only if
she had a guide. And when she indicated one of the larger warriors
who had chosen to escort her back, I just nodded. She appeared
puzzled by my manner but eventually went back to her place in the
great table. We were in the main hall that the family of Heelio and
his sons and daughters used most days. Jared and Marcia sat next to
each other and he seemed so light, so animated. They both joined in
with the chatter of the younger ones. Andre in particular was
lively and given to much elaborate telling of hunts and other
adventures. He glanced at me a couple of times. I sat quietly by
and listened to their tales. Janey edged a little closer to Jared
and he seemed to relax with all the tribes people round. I sensed a
hint of tension there, but it was diluted down by the cheery
chatter of Andre and his friends.

Heelio himself
stayed a little while and ate only the fruits he preferred and
drank the water. I found that I was actually quite hungry and
filled up readily. As the very young and the older ones of the
group began to disperse, I took my cue to go back to the rooms that
had been assigned to us. I was in a small sleeping alcove,
curtained off from the main area. Just as I was leaving Janey
stopped me.

‘Are you
ignoring me?’ she asked.

The question
seemed provocative, so I waited for her to qualify what she had
said.

She seemed
uncertain of what to do, as I didn’t get defensive. I saw it would
not change anything now anyway.

‘I’m sorry,’
she said at last, ‘that you aren’t going to come with me tomorrow.
Will you at least say goodbye?’

‘Goodbye
Janey.’

‘I mean in the
morning. The man Telios had said we must leave at eight. The clock
is the sundial in the room where the weavers work.’

‘I won’t be
able to see you off. We have to get the Buggy going as soon as we
can. I’m sorry.’

‘Oh…’

‘You know where
we’ll be first thing.’ I said.

‘Yes of
course….’ She seemed a little miserable at my response. I wasn’t
confused, I just didn’t want to be involved anymore.

‘You’ll be
there.’ I said, ‘to say goodbye to Jared?’

‘Yes…. I need
to tell him…. But will you, if I can’t?’

‘Tell him
what?’ I softened then and looked into her eyes.

‘Tell him….
Tell him,’ she looked away, lost in thought, ‘I wanted him to….
It’s not going to work. Unless he wakes up. They said there is a
very good chance of it.’

‘The doctors
said that?’

‘Yes,’ she
stared, bright eyed, ‘after all, there is always hope.’

‘Yes….there is
Janey. There is. I wish you a safe Journey tomorrow.’

‘Thank you
Davey. And thanks for bringing me. It was one of the best
adventures I’ve had.’

‘Goodnight
Janey.’ I left then, as I didn’t want to get bogged down in
decisions about how to say goodbye to someone who you were close to
in a way that was something I could not imagine. That weird twin
thing was something I had heard about. A psychic connection that
was so keen that they just knew when the other was in trouble. How
on earth did that work in these circumstances? Plus I needed to
find the bed and be alone with some quietness that echoed from
another place. Everything else was intruding on that, and
exhaustion plus dinner was making it harder to think straight.

We set of at a
fair pace. I sat in the back this time. It was only nine. And apart
from Heelio, Andre and Leanna no one else had been about as we left
the tribe for what appeared to be the last time. They weren’t big
on elaborate goodbyes. I supposed that they didn’t think of goodbye
as a permanent thing. Since they accepted everything in the way of
it being just part of the path that each walked. Meeting again was
something that they supposed always happened with those who had a
connection. And I felt then as I did a lot later, that we really
hadn’t touched anything but the surface of rich and strange lives
of a people who lived like no others I had ever met. Yet they
seemed quite at ease with the things that they were surrounded
with; living as they did in a harmony with the land and nature. We
ran quite smoothly. Marcia was the driver designate for this leg.
She got Jared arranged in the front with flasks and various other
things readily to hand. Ever practical, she had even written down a
list of supplies and equipment that we were carrying. Considering
her admission of worry last night, I was seeing that she had done
everything to make what we now had to do as successful as
possible.

Jared on the
other hand was looking strange. I had witnessed something between
him and the other Janey who was leaving that made me feel I really
needed to keep out of it. He had stood a little way from us,
staring out into the sky and making notes with a pencil on a pad he
carried when Janey (as in Harriet) came round to see him. The
others were nowhere in sight. And in that raw morning light they
stood together and she reached up and whispered something in his
ear. He bent down to listen and she reached round with both hands
and pulled him closer to her. I looked away. But being the noisy
sod I am I looked again. She embraced him in a way that suggested
the longing of a lover rather than the affection of a sibling. But
the line with Jared and most women was pretty blurred. He was
someone who seemed to inspire an kind of weak gooey devotion in
girls, and I had no reason to suppose that she could be very
different on one level. Every female who I had seen near him seemed
transfixed with some sort of hypnotic response. I asked Jared about
this much later. He said that he supposed that they saw something
he couldn’t hide. That he was too emotional, too chaotic, and
hadn’t got my control. I asked him about the control thing, and he
just sighed and said he wished he could keep them away. It was
difficult. He said, to be the tragic artist that all these crazy
chicks want to bed. I asked: why don’t I get that sort of thing?
And he said: because you’re better than that. I guess I didn’t
think that I was better than anything. I asked him why he wanted it
to be different. And he said something very odd…. He said that we
all want something we cannot have; and we all want to be someone
else. It’s just better when you can be around the person you want
to be like, that way you can always hope it rubs off on you. You
mean me? I said. Yes, you. You’re so good. And he said he wished he
was better. And hadn’t wasted it all. I feel soiled; he said. But
you are pure. Pure in heart….

A friend is one
who thinks you are better than you see yourself as being. And if we
both think that, we are both right. Because we do not live for
ourselves but for everyone we have ever met. And more about Janey.
She was his nemesis, he said, and his beloved. And that was it.
Always like the way night falls. And his angel, and his light. He
is more the poet then; but for now…. He sat and looked miserable
and Marcia drove, and our Janey sat there in the back silent like a
shadow that needed the sun to fall on it to bring it back into
being.

Janey Amber sat
in the back with me. Leanna had brought her out to us this morning.
I hadn’t seen her since yesterday. She refused any food and drink
that was offered to her. I didn’t understand why this was. I
thought it might have something to do with trying to disconnect
herself from this place. I really didn’t dare ask. So we just rode
in silence. I couldn’t think of anything to thing to say. One plan
had failed. I couldn’t see how this would work out. And the sense
of doom that was between us, was making me edgy in a way that was a
bit like the unpleasantness of last night. Leanna had reassured me
about the business with the soldiers through. She said that if they
came they would find nothing. And if they tried to take any of them
they would just disappear: ‘For it is not known,’ she said, ‘that
our power over the people of the mountain is not the slight thing
that we reveal, but the stronger thing that cannot be shown. And to
see what is unseen is the province of Gods and angels, and perhaps
you have them here with you….’

I spoke very
softly to our Janey, ‘Will you have some water?’ I offered her my
flask. Surprisingly she took it and drank from it. I sensed Marcia
glance into the rear view mirror but she didn’t make any
comment.

Janey passed it
back to me. She hadn’t said anything to me at all this morning. It
was sad and unpleasant and rather disquieting. She was feeling
down, that much was clear even to a clod like me. I could not know
if the future in the real world could ever exist. But somehow I
thought she could still be with us. My strange blind faith. She saw
me looking at her intently.

‘It’s funny,’
she began, ‘I remember how it was when we set out. I remember how
happy I was that day. I had some good news but I don’t remember
what it is now. I just know it was like a big bubble inside that
kept me buoyant for a long while. You seemed so hesitant at first.
Yet you always were eager to please; even Mr Hanson.’

‘And what am I
like now?’

‘Older. Mature
even. A serious man. You are not like some… who just give up. There
were a lot you know. They’re all mad or amnesiac now. And some have
no idea they were ever involved. All because of one little
equation.’

‘The equation,
yes. I mean to ask you about that.’

‘I worked on
it. Made it work. Yes. It was me.’

‘It was You
Janey. This you. You can’t not be the real person because you found
it. It has to be you that does get out. It has to be!’

‘I can’t steal
a life that isn’t mine. I won’t do it.’

‘It is yours. I
think that what happened was meant to.’

Janey smiled,
‘Heelio said something like that; Leanna said I should eat
something to keep my strength up.’

‘She is right
you know. Will you?’

‘Eat? Yes. If
you find the things in the pack.’

The next twenty
minutes of so were spent with small pieces of food being handed one
at a time to Janey. She would accept me giving these things to her.
I wondered why.

‘I don’t
believe in myself.’ she said in a weirdly calm way, ‘But I said to
myself I will do whatever you three ask. I won’t refuse you. Unless
I think what you’re saying is bonkers of course.’

‘I’m glad of
that. I personally need someone to check if I’m still sane at
regular intervals.’ I joked. She actually smiled at me then. I
looked at her face. She didn’t seem much different, but the food
certainly brought a little colour back to her face. We stopped and
all drank tea after that.