Tanglewreck

by Jeanette Winterson

  Regalia Mason was silent.

  Gabriel had seen Abel Darkwater walking ahead of him down the passage. Then Darkwater vanished, leaving his faint outline shimmering in the air. Gabriel put out his hand and touched the hated shape. It tingled slightly, but it was nothing. Empty space and points of light.

  He ran on towards the big barred doors ahead.

  ‘What happens to you and Sally and Kelly?’

  ‘My original is destroyed,’ said Regalia Mason. ‘As yet we cannot be in two places at one time, at least not in our physical bodies. I pass through Sally and into Kelly. The particle mass that was Kelly becomes me.’

  ‘And what happens to Sally and Kelly?’

  ‘They no longer exist as they once did.’

  ‘You kill them.’

  ‘For such a lively child you are obsessed with death! There is no such thing as death as you describe it. Our states alter, that is all.’

  ‘You’re like a crocodile, you just gobble everything up. If I get eaten by a crocodile I become part of the crocodile but I’m not me any more.’

  ‘Then you have understood an important lesson – it is better to eat than to be eaten.’

  Regalia Mason finished her sixth fried egg and mopped up her plate.

  ‘In fact, I am not the crocodile in your story. That is your friend Abel Darkwater. Crocodiles don’t die until something kills them. They have a very low body temperature, and, strictly speaking, they do not grow old as we grow old, they just go on growing. Abel Darkwater has lived a long time, but by very different methods to my own. What a strange place the world is, eh, Silver?’

  At that moment the hospital alarms started blaring through the kitchen and the corridors. Running feet. Shouting.

  Regalia Mason flipped open the lid of her computer.

  ‘Gabriel, the Throwback, has arrived. He has set off the alarms because he came in through the back door.’

  ‘I came in through the kitchen,’ said Silver.

  ‘Did you now? Still, you came in through the present. Gabriel has come in through the past. Entering a building via the eighteenth century is bound to set off the alarm.’

  ‘Don’t let them hurt him. Please,’ said Silver. ‘I only just got him out of the Black Hole.’

  The door opened and a dozen guards dragged Gabriel into the kitchen.

  ‘Gabriel!’ cried Silver in amazement, as well she might, for something very odd had happened to him. The boy she had known before the Black Hole had been about four feet six inches tall. He had been bent double and could hardly walk when they had rescued him, and they had crouched down on their run to the hospital, so she had not noticed the great change that had taken place. The boy standing before them was over six feet tall. The Black Hole had stretched him. He looked magnificent. He looked like a fallen angel.

  She went up to him. ‘You’re tall as a tower,’ she said.

  He hadn’t noticed. He had just noticed that everything he wore was tight and everything he did was a bit more of a squeeze. He had thought it was because he was injured.

  ‘Leave us alone,’ Regalia Mason ordered the guards. ‘The boy is no threat. I will deal with him. Have you prepared the twins?’

  The chief guard nodded, and he and his troop left the kitchen.

  ‘Have some eggs,’ said Regalia Mason, returning to her frying pan. ‘I have to leave shortly.’

  ‘We are in Bedlam, the dread place,’ said Gabriel.

  ‘Gabriel, calm down, please,’ said Regalia Mason. ‘You came here via the eighteenth century. I was just explaining to Silver that all states exist simultaneously but we can only tune in to one state at a time – well, usually that is the case. This is a modern hospital – Bethlehem Hospital, named I agree after your very own Bedlam, but for reasons I need not explain here. Your Bedlam still exists, although it was long ago pulled down in your world. But Gabriel, there is no need to visit it. Leave the past in its permanent home. Do not make that reality so strong that it tears down this one.’

  Silver listened. Regalia Mason frightened her because she was very clever and almost kind sometimes, the way people who didn’t care about you at all could be kind. And yet, none of the people who loved Gabriel had ever told him that he could be free of the fears his clan had dragged with them for more than three hundred years.

  ‘I know what you do to them that lives in the Black Hole,’ said Gabriel.

  ‘I am not responsible for everything that happens,’ replied Regalia Mason simply.

  ‘Yes you are,’ said Silver.

  ‘Then the Quantum is God after all. Is that what you want?’

  Clever, too clever. Silver was caught. She was angry. She must concentrate. The Timekeeper. That’s what she had to remember.

  ‘The Black Hole was an unfortunate mistake,’ said Regalia Mason. ‘We did not realise that when twins atomised, one spun upwards into the light, and one spun downwards into the dark. We should have realised, because it is exactly what happens to entangled particles in their non-human state. It did not happen because I am cruel and omnipotent, it happened because when science experiments, science makes mistakes. Some in your century will protest outside animal laboratories. Soon they will be protesters on the rim of the Black Hole. But we were right to experiment, and the future will know that.’

  ‘You throw the wasted people down there,’ said Gabriel. ‘They spoke to me. I heard them. You experimented on my father and his kind, and now you experiment on them.’

  ‘And you are killing people on the Einstein Line. I saw the portal,’ said Silver. ‘You don’t Deport them, you Atomise them.’

  ‘We are in a State of Emergency,’ said Regalia Mason. ‘Security is at risk. At such times the normal procedures do not apply. We regret it.’ She stood up. ‘Time to go.’

  ‘What are you going to do with us?’ asked Silver.

  ‘See you out.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to kill us too?’

  ‘Do you have a death wish?’

  ‘No,’ said Silver, ‘but you don’t want me to find the Timekeeper, do you?’

  Regalia Mason said nothing. She opened the doors, pressed a button, and ushered Gabriel and Silver ahead of her.

  Ranks and ranks of soldiers now lined the corridors of the previously deserted hospital. Barefoot, still finishing a slice of bread and butter, Regalia Mason ignored the soldiers and walked carelessly ahead. She reached the main door. In the vast open courtyard, rows of men in dazzling white uniforms stood to attention.

  It was nearly dawn, and two of the three suns of Philippi had risen on the horizon. The white uniforms of the soldiers were washed in sun-red.

  Silver and Gabriel stood with her on the steps looking out. There were armed men as far as they could see, and no path through.

  ‘Walk on,’ said Regalia Mason. ‘The order has been given. The men will part as you pass. You are free to do as you please.’

  Silver reached for Gabriel’s hand. He squeezed it, though he was frightened himself. They began to walk down the steps, and, as they did so, the red sea of soldiers parted, and the children walked through unharmed.

  Silver heard Regalia Mason’s low clear voice.

  ‘Now you know what power is.’

  A New Development

  Mrs Rokabye was surprised to find herself in the Vatican. All her life she had been a Baptist.

  ‘I thought the Vatican was in Rome,’ she said to Sniveller, who was dusting himself down.

  ‘Once a Pope always a Pope. Rome yesterday, Philippi today. Ave Maria, pass the beer, as we used to say after church.’

  ‘Where exactly are we?’ demanded Mrs Rokabye, still bound from head to foot in her extra-long scarf.

  ‘A planet called Philippi. A place called the Einstein Line.’

  Mrs Rokabye could not understand how a hole in the ground in Walworth, south of the River Thames, had brought her out by the Vatican Post Office. And she could not understand why this Post Office, these Popes, and this Vatican were not in Rome
but on somewhere called the Einstein Line. She had never been any good at science.

  ‘Life is more mystery than history,’ said Sniveller cheerfully.

  ‘Will we be going back the same way that we came?’ asked Mrs Rokabye anxiously.

  ‘Never step in the same river twice.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Cats hunt mice.’

  Obviously Sniveller had suffered a blow to the head in the Walworth Hole.

  ‘Could you tell me in plain English what you mean?’ asked Mrs Rokabye.

  ‘No,’ said Sniveller.

  ‘I’ll buy a postcard then. Might as well.’

  As Mrs Rokabye went into the Vatican Post Office, Sniveller noticed Abel Darkwater walking towards him talking to Pope Gregory XIII. Sniveller knew all of the Popes’ faces off by heart. He had memorised them the way some people memorise football teams.

  He shrank his little body behind the bulky frame of the Swiss Guard holding his pikestaff.

  ‘I must leave for the Sands of Time today,’ said Abel Darkwater, as they walked by the Swiss Guard.

  ‘Perhaps I will come with you,’ said Pope Gregory.

  ‘The child will lead us to the Timekeeper very soon.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then the Universe is ours.’

  They passed on. Sniveller popped out from behind the guard just as Mrs Rokabye came out with her postcards.

  ‘I don’t know who I’m going to send them to. I haven’t got any friends.’

  ‘You’ve got me,’ said Sniveller.

  ‘Not much point in sending you a postcard saying, “Wish You Were Here”, because you are here.’

  ‘Very true,’ said Sniveller, ‘but neither of us will be here much longer because we are going hand in hand to the Sands of Time.’

  ‘It’s not down a hole, is it?’

  ‘It is very nearby, if I recall, though I don’t recall at all.’

  Mrs Rokabye let out a yelp. ‘There’s something moving in my coat pocket!’

  She put her hand in her pocket and smacked it up and down her thigh, as though she were trying to land a fish.

  ‘It’s the pin!’ she said. ‘It’s moving! It’s alive.’ She pulled out the shining pin, which had a force so strong that it was turning Mrs Rokabye’s whole body northwards. ‘It’s like a divining rod,’ she said. ‘Where is it pointing?’

  Sniveller’s eyes were popping out of his head. He knew exactly what Mrs Rokabye had in her hands, but he could hardly believe it.

  ‘’Tis the Hand!’ he said. ‘The Hand that points to the Sands!’

  ‘This is no time for gibberish!’ cried Mrs Rokabye. ‘I am being dragged off my feet!’ And so she was as the pin, gleaming and vibrating, pulled her North.

  ‘Where did you get that?’ demanded Sniveller.

  ‘I found it in the wretched child’s duffle coat.’

  ‘It is the Hand of the Timekeeper!’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Oh yeses, no guesses.’

  ‘I thought it was treasure,’ said Mrs Rokabye, disappointed.

  ‘Treasure indeed in our hour of need!’

  ‘You mean this thing is trying to lead us to the Timekeeper?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Well, I must have something to eat first,’ said Mrs Rokabye. ‘Too much excitement on an empty stomach can be fatal. Tell it, oh, tell it we’ll set off in an hour, but quick, because it’s pulling my arm out of its socket.’

  And Sniveller muttered something in a strange language, and suddenly Mrs Rokabye’s arm that was whirling round and round fell back beside her body.

  ‘It is the Hour,’ said Sniveller. ‘It is the Moment.’

  ‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Mrs Rokabye, ‘but where can I find a fillet of fish and a Rum Baba?’

  She was pale, it is true, her face as watery and cratered as the moon. Sniveller felt all his gallant and manly instincts come to the fore. He took Mrs Rokabye’s arm, and escorted her straight to the Caffè Ora.

  Soon they were sitting at a table eating fried fish and spinach, with chocolate cake to follow. It was a proper meal out, with a glass of wine, and Mrs Rokabye was enjoying herself. Soon she would eat out like this every day, because soon she would be rich.

  ‘Here’s to the money!’ she said, raising her glass.

  ‘Here’s to love!’ said Sniveller. ‘A kiss is better than a miss,’ and he leaned over and puckered his lips.

  Mrs Rokabye ignored him and filled her mouth with fish.

  At that moment, a weary and perplexed Silver and a limping Gabriel opened the door of the Caffè Ora. Silver walked out backwards and trod on Gabriel’s foot.

  ‘We’d better go in through the window,’ she said. ‘Sniveller is in there with Mrs Rokabye.’

  Worms!

  Sir Roger Rover, Thugger and Fisty had finished eating the swan.

  Only then did they notice the worm.

  The worm was round and brown and it seemed to be staring at them, which was unlikely, because worms do not stare.

  And yet, the worm seemed to be staring at them.

  It was quite a large worm.

  ‘It’s like the Loch Ness Monster,’ said Fisty.

  ‘Yeah, and so is the Elf King,’ said Thugger. ‘Hee hee.’

  ‘Well, I tell you, that worm is looking this way. It’s trying to tell us something.’

  While Thugger and Fisty were arguing about the intentions, or otherwise, of the worm, Roger Rover had gone to examine it. He had noticed this worm before, but his rooms were full of spiders and mice and the like, and worms were, well, just worms.

  Only this one had dug a worm-hole.

  Roger Rover tapped at the panelling where the worm was waving its head, and the knocking noise told him that the panel was hollow. Eagerly he prised it off the wall with his short stout dagger, and then he fell back, amazed.

  ‘I swear on my grandma’s knickers,’ said Thugger, ‘that I never seen the like in all my born days!’

  Behind the panel was a glowing hole stretching deeply back through the wall, and on and on. The hole was not only glowing – it was rotating, slowly, like a spinning top.

  ‘It’s making me dizzy just looking at it,’ said Fisty.

  ‘Gentlemen – this is our escape!’ said Roger Rover excitedly.

  ‘Oh no, oh no,’ moaned Fisty. ‘No more holes, drops, or tunnels, please.’

  ‘I have been a prisoner for too long. I shall take my chance with Fate,’ said Sir Roger grandly. ‘It is no worse than the hold of a pirate ship, no worse than this place that has become my cell.’

  And he stepped forward and disappeared.

  ‘He’s gone!’ said Thugger.

  ‘And we’re still ’ere,’ said Fisty.

  ‘Come on, then – or do you want to spend the rest of your life in this place, like he did? Gawd knows how long he’s been here. ’Bout four hundred years, I reckon.’

  ‘I’m only twenty-six,’ said Fisty miserably.

  ‘I’m going,’ said Thugger.

  ‘No, no! Don’t leave me!’

  ‘Goodbye till we meet again.’

  And Thugger stepped into the rotating hole, and vanished at once.

  ‘Oh Elvis, I wish you was ’ere!’ wept Fisty, cuddling what was left of his robodog. ‘What shall I do?’

  Poor Fisty could not make up his mind what to do, because he didn’t have a mind to make up. But that didn’t matter, because the worm-hole was already filling the room, spreading like a wave towards him, and his last thought as it swept him away into its rotating centre, was that he could smell curry.

  Greenwich

  At Greenwich, Regalia Mason was talking to the Prime Minister. The Observatory was surrounded by police and the military, trying to keep order. The streets were full of demonstrators. Ordinary people were afraid. Religious groups were happily predicting the End of Time.

  Regalia Mason had appeared on the BBC news, and explained carefully and simply why Quanta offered the best sol
ution to the present problems. When she talked about her company taking ‘Shares in Time’, most people thought vaguely about a villa in Spain for three weeks every year. Others were excited by the idea of time machines and worm-holes, and all the paraphernalia of Star Trek.

  Regalia Mason had the backing of many of Britain’s top scientists, who longed for the money to begin research into the mysteries of Time. Even those hostile to an American company heading the project had to admit that there seemed to be no other solution. If the Time Tornadoes and Time Traps were to end, special help was needed. Quanta could provide that help.

  That morning the Prime Minister had agreed that Quanta would control any commercial interest in Time.

  Privately, the Prime Minister did not believe that Time could be traded like a commodity. Nor did he believe in Time travel, Time Transfusions or teleporting. His view was that Regalia Mason and her company wanted to believe that there would be some return on the billions they would have to invest. The rest was science-fiction.

  Possibly the research would generate some lucrative byproducts – just as nuclear power had been a by-product of the atomic bomb, and just as the microwave had been invented when a radio operator had accidentally passed his sausage or his peanut bar or his egg or whatever it was through the waves of his radio transmitter, and discovered to his amazement that his sausage or his peanut bar or his egg had cooked itself.

  Well, let Quanta have its version of the microwave. What harm could it do?

  ‘Shall we sign the Agreement today?’ asked Regalia Mason, gorgeous in her white Armani.

  ‘Tomorrow, I believe,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘The European Parliament will ratify the decision tonight – as you know there have been disturbances in France and in Russia too.’

  ‘Yes, I have heard,’ said Regalia Mason.

  ‘And there are some strange unexplained events surrounding the recent hurricanes in New Orleans and Florida. People have disappeared.’

  ‘People often disappear,’ said Regalia Mason, mildly.

  Micah, crouching behind the fireplace, heard all of this. His mind flew back to the dark days of Bedlam, when Abel Darkwater and Maria Prophetessa had worked through the night, night after night, on their ‘Experiments’. They had vowed to unlock Time’s secrets, and with it the power of the Universe.